Players in the hit parade
abound like orphans—eat the glow
of while-you're-seated pills that start
the fading of a heart. Their covert
deposition talks you down—hawks
warlord-wisdom, spits betrayals
of what you built. So if you have
to plea, reveal your guilt two inches
from their eyes.

Good jest replies
in callbacks: "When you get to be
more special, let us know." So folds
their show of reason, leaving you
to lurk upstage upholding tasks
divorced from charm: false shopping,
twisting arms. Outsourced.

In faith a word
casts end-of-game, denies
them helpful shame,
applauds their global reach
like red-tide beaches. Lights up;
stir the waxing i·re, fixed-width,
non-perspiring, livid.
Stunned in passing,
angels catch collapsing tenets
cached in rivals' mark: clipped off
and quiet, buried in the dark.