veterans of the red-blooded-sand shift.
sifting into crevasses in our souls:
grit that grinds in the gears
putting scratches in the plate glass mirrors
put up in front of our lives.
gun holes --
minuscule on the outside
yawning open on the inside --
punctuate our faces.
guts held in too widely splayed fingers,
apologize,
palates lisping,
urine soaking through our already dirty jeans,
collar-button minds popping,
dropping cheap muscatel
on the white carpet of your world.
time and again we parade our deformities
where you can gawk and then turn away.
we can pretend we are proud of those scars
so raggedly sewn together with barbed wire.
savage clowns who ravage ourselves --
faces dead white,
noses bright neon --
we are so chilling because we are too like you:
our paint is not alien enough;
the words are almost understandable.
we are professionals, don't try this on yourself)
beware our hobby horse cavalry
tarring all who fall beneath us.
we are wound and wounded clocks,
time-bombed brains,
schlepped together by military intelligence.
can we odysseans ever settle down back here in ithaca?
will the ithaca shotguns we place so lovingly in our mouths
let in enough light
to reflect something off these too dark mirrors?

o god, the light!