Perdition

     we have become a perfect
clockwork mechanism -
one festering mass of crooning cogs, roaring
pistons, raging gears
wound up by the fingers of our
perfect clockwork messiah
to whom we offered alms
prayers and
first-born sons,
and in whose name we fought
to save the world from
passion
and the abomination of a
love more perfect than
His own
we have become a perfect
clockwork mechanism -
one festering mass of viral lies and
semper fi’s,
wound up by the fingers of an
abstract politician;
a humanist with a four hundred dollar haircut,
a doctor who hates to be disturbed unless
someone is dying, too busy with the act of
shoving kittens in mailboxes for
the sake of subtlety
all part of this oiled, lucrative mass
of perfect clockwork and
cracked cement
where children hop from
shadow to shadow to shadow to shadow of the
war planes streaking across the summer sky
carrying A-bombs and
screaming tora! tora!
tora!