William Gibson
TOBIAS' PRAYER
Dog and angel of skills
Who barked and chimed me a progress
Sweet in the sour, air of sewer hung, carious
Tenement jails
I grew in, beast and boy,
Toeing me strait in a clubfoot ring
Of lockstep and stumble poor, by snarl and song
Beset me free.
Now I am come to my troth
And devilled bride, the opulent
Hip of the world, great bullion teat, metropolis,
Divulged in her pith
Where, all inroad, she lies
Cobbled with spice and skulls of good mert
At my feet, I do fear, I do fear, nor dare devil in
Upon her lubricities
Lacking the hobnails of grief.
To my wedding feast now let me conjure
All souls, misbegotten and damned, if I am a stranger
To ills, or deaf
To cries I turned into songs
When song was my turnkey, and only toil
To run with my saviour angel and dog, in a world
Of gifts, and wrongs.
1102
