Acceptable Loss

Good thing I'm not a prophet 'cause I smell shit on the horizon . . .


THE REST OF IT GOES HERE
Acceptable Loss
Drinking again with tooth pain, my thoughts apocalyptic
Foresee rainlessness of three years browning and making
Needles of the grasses as bare feet bleed and scurry for shade.
Electricity winks a final time her harlot's neon eye and dies,
Rendering our modern and cruel business existence moot.
Is the cave of our salvation just over the next hill of litter?,
Or beyond the glitter and stench of the next oil-dead river?
We clench and covet the girls but forget about the books.
Libraries, failed temples of hope, burn in pure blue flames.
Newspapers feed the communal bonfires of the last days.
From one boundless cloud the ash of men and snow flutter,
Tiny remnants of bones and feathers cover eternal winter.
Yes, the prophets ranted as usual the usual message in vain:
Turn from the sin of reason and profit which separates
Forever self from Other and embrace the ancient simplicities.
But no. The nuclear phalluses knew the penetration of earth,
A billion children scalded out of life's illuminated manuscript,
Violence upon violence and not a healthy drop to drink,
Screams upon screams to deafen the ears of daybreak
And not a towering or tender thought to think.
Time to keep warm now so we huddle close despite our stink
And burn dumpsters of money to heat our frostbit feet.
Time to find what's precious: a cave, a fawn, a flame, a woman
Whose ovaries have not been roasted dead from the inside.
Time to embrace your neighbor, not your television or career,
For the terror of night is here, the ice creeps, and don't sleep.
Slick and syrupy speech is now extinct. The poems are lost,
But so is the posturing and arrogance that led to total loss.
Dave scratches the snarls of his beard, spits out a tooth and says:
"Me thinks these words be devils: acceptable loss."