who can forget when prometheus
dangled fire from his pocket? he
couldn’t- they tied him up and ate
his liver every day. they means an
eagle. fire means smelting. did they
use hammers to drive down his
shackles? how else could they make him
stay still. too many clay figures to
play with. better that bacchus dances
with them at the hillside between fur and
blood. he spreads like a kiss and pirouettes
across particles. if you tell them to stop they’ll
eat you alive. prometheus got hammered so
dionysus could dance. wine disinfects
at any time of day. rub your hands
until they start to crack.
if we must die, well not like hogs,
and see the soul in paraphrase,
while in that hollow seventh sphere
we’ll see this little spot of earth:
the smoking hills in vaporous light,
the hospital so quiet in rain,
the rumbling wheels, the darkened city,
the bitterness rests in their eyes.
shut out the night-dew, lock the doors:
between a yawn, another ensuing,
their words will melt like beads of whiskey,
this world, their world, is not conclusion.
consistency is all they ask
give them this day their daily mask.
the clothes are obsolete: material thin
over the fingers, snug for a depopulated
world. nothing sprung from their
edges. skin tracing the seams, by seam-
stress sutured in fast fashion, the old
supply and chain, textile factory
shuttered silent–
dreams of a digital menagerie: heads
severed onto blazing torsos, swept
back and forth– pantsuit, summer dress,
trousers, tops– fraying faster for no
blue sweater is just a blue sweater, least
when it unravels in this heat and
theirs–
the crinkling is essential.
grind the look book with mortal
and pixel and scatter the
semiotic dust.