KINETIC CHRIST

I was deprived of power as a child, said the balding
eagle to the claims department, his breath
on fire, and his hand on third base flying
homeward, relieved of duty

and pitched into another shift on a close call.

Woman’s intuition is that a man should do it,
evidently another lost cause, his death
to prove nothing but the release
winging it to spare us his fall.

Pop crackle. Moonsong.
The efforts are worn from the chest,
splinters of glory dancing in the fireccaves
nearer to thy loins than lions in the wind
and the murmurs of generations
never savvy to the wisdom
of peppermint slaves.

The choice of ironing the only shirt in town
or swinging with the slugger’s club
parches a few tongues, a brain
and a bodyguard on leave from art school,
the video drones loving the effects
much more than the call of DNA—
but denying it in fashionable cliques
of gestation. The metal clown
chirps…

“Woe, woe, woe your boat , mintly down the cream,
wearily, wearily, wearily, wearily, wife’s a butterbean!”

Home court presses, visitation rights,
the metal clown chirps.

[ 1996, Washington, DC ]