the old god

is fiercer than love and
older than jesus;
yes, older than
fire flicking from the heavens
and hands digging up
the cool dense rock;
seeing form and worth and
devising rite to
transubstantiate metal
into labor and back;
ha, yes, the old god
laughed itself secular –
sees the worshippers
falsely supplicating at many altars:
and yet, and yet,
at every counter they
flash the old sign
in modern ways
and the act
gives them sustenance.

troubadours

town to dale to city with song
singing bright, sound and strong,
some find rhythm in their love
others hold love out of rhythm;
neither is right; neither is wrong –
learn to sing,
then play along.

everything to little excess

an unnecessary pump of shampoo –
a smidge of extra detergent
(per the company’s instruction)
the gilt and lie
of nickel and dime
the constant slide
of too much too often;
the little excess of the everyday –
how it piles,
how it
drains and drains until
there’s nothing left.

Compris’d of Endin’s

All things end and

life goes on –

hands fresh with

secret instinct;

(craft abandoned but not forgotten)

thread-ends turn to bowlines.

And even infinity can be

broken

into phases

gray mass

Michelangelo made great content
and so does the US Army;
The Content is raining from the sky and
gathering in the corn-roots of America;
Content in the oceans,
choking all the little fishes;
Content in the cities
piling high until it stinks;
we are the great content
put upon this Earth
in the image of the Creator;
with knife-nick and
camera-clack,
we make our content
one bloodbath at a time.

first warm day

first warm day and
everyone goes crazy –
kids threatening in the streets.
parents growling, cursing,
crashing into cars parked on the shoulder –
first warm day and
everyone goes crazy
the life in them greening up and
flaring in the heat –
first warm day and
everyone goes crazy –
finally,
finally,
they have the energy for it.

Excess Sprouts

what unnoticed cruelty
to lovingly plant so many seeds
and
finding too many sprouts –
too much life
coaxed from the shells of stasis –
to gather the tender green shoots and
chuck ”em in the dumpster.

no night tonight

the weatherman wept and
said there will be no night, tonight –
mother cried along with him.
father poured himself a drink for
the first time in thirty years,
just stared glum at the window
light shining on in,
smoothing the wrinkles of his face.
i dug up some lousy book –
and the light kept me reading –
and morning never came,
and nothing mattered after.

infinitely reproducible

the words are arranged and
may be read again indefinitely;
how beautiful – bread
that nourishes that is not eaten;
make one such loaf and
you should be able to live forever,
yes?
finish one great work
that will live forever everywhere
and
nothing else should be expected.

financialization

the priests file
job applications;
the warriors
beg their bread –
the artisans are labor now,
the kings and queens lie dead –
the artists crumple in the machine
that squeezes them on the board-
the merchants drink and praise and laugh
at how profits have soared.