Staring down at these unwieldly things,
this we knew and still play, pokerfaced, even slightly amused.
Trying hard to be a winner, once at least,
to eat from where the big dog eats, instead of being
out of prison, back from dead, being of dubious things accused.
When we know the game’s been won by those who despise us the most,
hunkering down and hiding become honorable things for one to do.
Practical at least, carefully considering repeatedly
how the bowshot of revenge is most carefully aimed.
Loss for many is part of the cost of victory for the greedy few;
those at the wake verify a death yet no one rises to offer toast.
Summer is no more different now, but one batters down in it quicker these days.
Blazing sun can be nurse, a mistress, or son of a bitch
how its light seems thicker in some ways.
Now, not much water in your small selves left to sweat with,
none left here still willing who will underwrite our debt,
our last seam left binding us is coming all unstitched.
Mister Right and Mister Wrong dress much differently these days,
but still the same enough to be confusing.
Autumns have slipped on past, requiring nothing from a blind man
except in the nights; quietly hoping for cover of some fashion, basic shelter,
fire if one can be invented in time,
but burning the furniture to stay warm may be too late to help.
It is winter here now, requiring that one stay indoors if one can.
Fireplace nodding is an attribute well-polished by practice,
what is temperature but one thing lacking of another?
This kind of thing best left undecided by a jury is instead
replayed all the same over and over by everyman’s actress
as protection from reality’s blackness.
The same ones that seem so hard to unconvince,
no urgency nor eloquence carry much weight with false shepherds.
Only mindless repetition penetrates the flocklike children of men;
telling us over again until we are brain numbed, they are winded.
None believed it then nor has it been enshrined in the records,
perhaps when sanity collapses we will believe it then.