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.

 

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