The Truth

Truth is the highest virtue...

If you understand that you'll understand.

It's why makeup is evil.

It's why I never iron my shirts.

It's why if I say "how are you?"  and

You lie, you've transgressed.

It's why sad movies are often better than

Happy endings...but not always...

I know, I know, you want to say

"Love" is higher, but you can't have love

Without truth.  I mean, you can have

Storybook love, self-love, or even selfless acts,

But true love loves in spite of the knowledge of the

Other's failings.  Storybook love is paper-doll role-playing.

Finding supporting characters.  Not divine union.

Some say we can't handle it.

Protect and patronize,

They tell us to go about our lives and keep our cool:

It's good for the economy, after all.

Of course, they could handle the truth if they only knew.

But lies lead to lies and expectations of lies. 

Myths that give people power can't be eroded,

Of course, power is just air, expectations, people.

And that's the truth.

The real will win out

When the reels wind down.

Blackouts

It's done.

They'll be waking up and in a few hours

Their batteries will run out;

They won't know what to do with themselves

Without the digital static to fudge the spaces
Between them.

They'll be angry, frustrated, lonely,

And

Human again.

Tinsel and Lights

Stomach twists London tears

Hauptbahnhof good-byes shouldered

The time that you weren't here.

We mark time with tinsel and lights

The time you came, the time it snowed in Sasebo,

The train to Reno.

The Brigantine alone.

Sick in Bishkek.

Sick in Mexico.

Tinfoil mouth.

The time you left us and went home.

Black Fridays

Black Fridays

Sticks.

Wood frame.

Icon.

Oil burning anointing lamp

Recession cave upheavals.

1869, 1929, 1989,

Yellow sticky note on a calendar

Inserts

Momentary illumination between

Two black Fridays

A red day, a blood day, a sticky day,

A day for cutting ribbons

And umbilicals

A baby born Athena-wise

A spurt of blood from the president's skull

The market is avalanching.

Someone was stabbed over a parking space.

We probably spend it all ’cause the pain ain’t cheap.

How deep is your greed?

Target

God is dead...we have killed him...

-Ed ads data mining roaring 20s

A big push.

Best Buy smartphone subprime mortgage lending.

Amniotic bubble bursts

Toys R Us bailouts for big wigs

Must we ourselves not become gods simply to appear worthy of it?

Peasantry. a cry of protest.

For shame, Jerusalem,

No human family.

Someone was stabbed over a parking space.

The prodigal swipes credit card messiah

Freedom ain't cheap

Crossed staves on a skull.

Three stabs in a grassy knoll.

Shadows on a baby's soft wet cranium.

Seven Bolsheviks burst through the door...

The loss of a kingdom.

Shepherd-song.

The loss of the innocents.

...bullets slam pillows and diamonds

Elder brother poison priest

Hunts down the prodigal God

Only one is good.

The princeling groans.

The blood on the hay.

Divine right of rule.

Ask not what your country can do for you...

How deep is your greed?

Every boom must bust

Every bone be dust.

Two parallel railroad ties outside Yekaterinberg.

But oh the ride.

When things were new.

When the president was a sweet little boy

And I held him in my arms,

And he was mine at my breast

But now he belongs to the mob roar

The media throngs and the political trends

What is truth?
They are money laundering the rough edges off the

Universe's seams

Bankrupt in bullshit righteousness,

Reductionism.  What's a King to a mob?

On giving Tuesday I attempt to bribe the judge.

The star-reds marker X ma(rk)s

The spot on Dealey Plaza.

50% off, casting roulette

(whiteblackwhiteblackyingyangbrotherbrotherclatterclack)

On a white robe.