A Prayer is Shooting at the Present
His father regarded him with a brutal insouciance.
It was nearly enough
to start the rain.
This world is sick of heavens.
It's always time to eat,
our elastic age can stretch towards morbidity
like the last age we will ever have.
Money flows through.
Supposedly lubricating laws wallow about
their feet mired in ink. Refuse to discuss:
not rape if witnesses
are both silent and clamant.
Every soul needs a plumber.
All of his friends are getting by,
new lords of business, Costa del Troll.
Those who have tumbled
Costa del Dole. Most form a lumpy middle
wage warfare without winners or any real blood.
He won't give up, turns to her.
They still retain this
making love without appointments.
These ointments of meaning.
As if caught by unshakable winter viruses
everyone sniffles and endures.
This is what passes for the news,
knowing it will pass.
There is now a profoundly
small government making small decisions
to trim all the useless, small lives.