his eyelids conclude why bother
manacled they led him away
to the red beating heart of their city
in his mud brick cell they tried everything
cattle prod fire hose blow dryer
ineluctable forces of nature
now there are wires in his head
his neo-cubist portrait
ended up on bags of dog food
have you seen this child
we make too many monsters
for the safety of this planet
a petting zoo of pretty spiders
eager to charm uneager to learn
ever-ready to change the subject
claiming that this is the normal milieu
leaping from euphemism to euphemism
preconceptions luridly arrayed
detour around the temple kids
there’s mobsters in heaven
they don't tell you that but it is true
they run the gambling arcade of faith
the will he or won’t he tables
it should be clear by now that
prayer does not ward off plague
even for the willfully superficial
should we all be capable of greatness
or blind credulity you decide
behold the broadly entangled universe
in all its partly comprehensible splendor
the design that stuns with perfection
and then kills you so slowly
that your DNA begins to tell you
how when and what to think
it couldn't be more or less blatant
drifting in the eddies of a potential thing
in which the big impossibility happened
at least we know how to know more
stray as you wish into the arms of beauty
and rub against her silks and furs
make her mumble the irony the irony
her paranoia may be an entrance
but live for today is a sham
and a shuck and a jive
because tomorrow always comes
this is a mathematical given
the human condition
used to be specified as lost
now at least it’s curious
From "Engine of Didactic Beauty" available on Amazon