Good Luck When It’s Time to Die
They dimly
register your
outline.
You’re a
skid mark
on the
face of time.
So are
they but
it never
occurs to them.
Self-deception
makes them
the life
of the party.
All they
need are
some props:
A flag
or two,
membership in
the gym;
A god
to dress
up for
on Sunday;
A Moose
Lodge &
a bowling team;
A book
club
& a
living
room;
A throw
rug &
a blowtorch;
Children who
see them as
skid marks.
Well,
why not?
Why look
your blurred
self in
the eye?
Good luck
tho when
it’s time
to die.
Editorial Guidelines: I’ve been castigated by some for what they see as my haughty attitude in tossing Shards into the web stream like gored matadors and welcoming any editor they happen to rub up against to publish them. Perhaps if I were to promise a $20 after-the-fact “reading fee” if one of these editors were to publish one of these Shards, their attitude toward me might soften; I might even become eligible for one of the multitude of “competitions” that haunt the web; I might even get my picture on one of their web sites if I’d be willing to pose staring intently into the camera with my hair tousled and my index finger up alongside my nose; or staring dreamily upward as if God or a naked woman were floating by up there. Well, politely said, what’s this world coming to? Less politely said, fuck ’em. None of this applies to the stormtrooper editors who snap up Shards like frogs with long tongues snapping up flies, editors who aren’t shackled to a lethargic protocol that reeks of procedural censorship. I’m the last living survivor of the Mimeo Revolution, and I’m out for blood.
