The Poetry of Mark Daniel Milbocker 
Childish Lore

So many hours did I
attend your blackened bedside
crossed constellations of tear stains 
sprayed in agony upon the pillowcase
before your heartfire would grow to
leave no mark except a steamy gasp 
of shadows and sighs of surrender
lost between dreams of defiance and cold
prayers to barterdom's blind mayor.

So few times did I
stand to defend the withering 
fatherland of lost farmboys or 
strike my claim upon the mountaintop
with tablets of broken granite 
left for gravel where no seed would grow
though thirty weeds would try their best
only to fade flaxen from passing carbamide
as uneradicated as love's gaze passing over.

So did I mimic my master
learn their explanations for my sins
or how to feign the adoration of worship
with exuberant acquiescence uncodified
yet I fawned one too many a flourish
and found myself gazing into the cosmic eye
who spoke thusly: when shall you stand
a real presence? grumblingly humbling me
id untentatively testifying to ego so superbly.

So from Eden I withdrew to idyll
and bought my plot to plow the potter's field 
and grew a twisted crop of burled pearls
fit only for lone stone soup and salad
but even thoreaus need flee the gullywashers
to find their own warmth is hearth enough 
for two but no more and for a while were happy
but death novels need only one final chapter.
So I flew from fallacies into the fantastic

amidst the flows of thermoclinic nebulae
northern lit with pink green visceralities
the rain of so many aching archeologies 
cascades over the salty delta marshland
where mangrove harbors minnows from maneaters
and a thousand teacups succor the linger
of lament and allow the aperture to fall silent
garner-gathering the passing of luminaries
so that where none gazes I may leave praises.
■





©2026 Mark Daniel Milbocker  All rights reserved.