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03 January 2012

if we were profits

shapes bend

and buck stuck

to the skin of our thin

our thinnest meaning

gleaming teeth

unsheathe

echo chambers

mouths

that crowd

around the parables

of pity by committee

we pull apart

our start

and hand it to the wind

pinned

to the politics of purpose

I ache

I ache to awake

from the gloss of our loss

of our losses

she crosses

on the ballot next to

ambivalence

antipathy and rye

caustic shrugging

drugging hope

with a cautious poison

tighten your belt

accept the hand

you were dealt

by the crooked

croupier

4 comments:

Brian Miller said...

ha but we are profits...that is why they keep us around and let us choose who leads based on who they tell us we can vite for...smiles...really some nice flow and allusions and i love the pic

hedgewitch said...

Very skillful use of interior rhyme and building tension through your language here--and I agree with brian--just read a quote from Voltaire; "The comfort of the rich depends upon an abundant supply of the poor." Excellent piece, cat.

Zoe said...

I agree - strong flow, some good solid phrases, (drugged hope was my fav) and loved the alliteration and rhymes.

omiT said...

Couldn't help substituting the word "patients" for "we" in the title for myself. (The mindboggling edifice of private health care in South Africa is only able to answer to shareholders rather than the sick and dying. Strength, Aaron Motsoaledi!) Run-on Rhymes and serpiginous assonance-alliteration communicate a sense of desperation rippling under the surface of "shrugging" and "accept(ing) the hand...dealt". Exactly how I feel! I love the phrase "the crooked croupier" as a refutation of Adam Smith's "invisible hand".