Away

away

away your fruiting bodies,
your feathery lashes and goldilocks glasses of
hours.
away you strikers unrelenting,
unrepentant abusers of small animals -
pretty places to lay
in love,
in shame,
and exhaustion.

away you dark-eyed dabblers,
sweat-anointed painters of candlelight.
marbled, pedastaled
dispensers of soma and salt.
say you some sooth, if you possess it,
or otherwise: some whiskeyed words.
little shrines of solace and sedition.
fire eats and ice retreats,
refrigerate, incinerate,
that sort of thing.
it doesn’t matter.
there’s gnats immune to your sticky traps,
and one of them is already in the
bottle.

away you jesters, you testers, you wearers of carnival grins.
your embers part the night
and set the tents aflame.
let come the wired, the bored, the muddled masses,
you say.
beacon-promise of refuge and long, fertile fields.
the goods are cheap and the revelry is cheaper.
but the crop is high enough already,
and too late we see the cardboard pavilions.
too late we see the gilded wagons
are circled.
dealing death with feline precision.
beautiful wreckage for beautiful shores.
observers are nice,
contributions are
better.

away you meddlers, you peddlers, you nightmare purveyors.
away these morsels, these artisan treats.
we can’t afford them.
ludicrous things in velvety boxes,
murderous marvels
of voodoo science and alchemy.
mutant concoctions,
logo locusts, shamrock brands,
nothing lucky or Irish about them.
nothing accidental
in these designer lands.
dustbowl  magicians, questionable cures,
fire-breathing tossers of sausage and cake
and lies.
with sinister herbs and black-market spices.
a proud old recipe in bold modern hands,
perfected.

away the rhythms, the jisms, the lacquered apple lips.
the heathen hymns and siren song,
away.
turners of coats and lenses and tides.
we watched our mighty phalanx fall,
watched it crumble, liquefy.
doomed promontory on a wrathful sea,
butter in the pan.
who knew such delicate feet
could trample so fiendishly.
all those leveled spears, those gems of the forge,
so expertly gripped and with such confidence
bristling -
whiskers of rats in deep throated cats,
hopeless, broken,
food.

away the disheveled faces and spaces, lead-lidded nights of backspin and blur.
away the wasteland, the smoldering butts, candied wrappers and dirtied words, spilt wine,
second cheapest.
the press of bodies, robbers of breath and Samaritan hands.
hidden things, mingled things -
gentle at first, and then in earnest.
or crushing, maybe – desperate from the start.
reckless dancers with the damned.
so many recipes, so many ways
to feed the cats.
but enough and away with it
all.
the coats you’ve licked, the veteran pelts
remember your texture, your shape and your
taste.
we remember the phalanx,
and we do not forgive.
not at least until someone discovers
that our flock is not without its wolves,
and then this: sometimes, if they’re very lucky,
they get a cat
or two.