The Sleep of the Just (Barely)

Now all the martyrs have been vanquished
who can we trust to translate a safe lunch
from the Mandarin? Is it a crazy ass chicken
scratch menu? Or an exquisite chronicle
of an ancient heartbreak? Is that even real
Amerikan Chinese? Where are all the funny
fuck ups that make the fire containable?

No one killed for justice in days. And yet
there is a school, the blackout windows
watch you waiting for a bus each morning.
Nature’s wondrous dance of watcher and bus
passenger freezing at the stop. The lateness
of conveyance again, value added continuity.
Muy Bueno. The lunge of the universe sings.

He gave himself an Oscar for his penultimate
orgasm but his speech exceeded the time limit.
The looming danger of too many essential people
to thank. Befriended by the very friendly deities
all acting together like a battery life. O, black
and uncharted errata, how convenient that you
can’t get anywhere from here.

The lurch forward of the stopping threw
the bodies back like a motorcade headshot.
Loud was the noise that was heard and aimed
the gazes of observers focusing on a pigeon
fight visible beyond the light-up destination
sign. These were among the inconsistencies
that made it a good day, but not in court.

Through the cyclone he lost none of his fat,
having studied the resiliency of the shithead.
He practiced imitating contracting stars, without
the concomitant fairytale emissions. Nothing of her
influence survived his scoliosis of the funnies.
That once self-described glib tongue already grafted
to a bone in the blistering end of the garden.


So how, again, was a martyr constructed?
It had to be according to some Chinese puzzle
where you line up the borrowed warheads. Not
without some help from the Self Inflicted Auto Dealers
Group. They use their children to annihilate your soul.
So says the broken cross to the shattered crucible
of Milwaukee’s Best, ignoring the irony.

Close your eyes. Visualize yourself on a beach
attempting to achieve an erection with the help
of only a single oyster cracker. You do not
feel salt in the breeze. You have no sense
but can say the words, “Remote” and “Safety”
into an empty chamber. You need more booyah
from your lack of prowess.

Let the inconsequence, of which that vast expanse
before your stitched lids is largely a familiar mower
path, bathe you gently in scalding tomato soup.
A bus-like military vehicle runs over you hourly.
Try to count backwards from one.
Pretend that a beautiful woman
can see you breathing.