Success 

 

dreadful I used to write poems for free Dark inscriptions Milk paper Cross-legged analog typology—dreadful, the way its smile exacts price and cascades like a layered haircut  How it zaps blonde light like a moth to a s h o c k  How success redefines, “rewarding” refines  He moves like impatience  Flops in basketball shorts  Stands in an overwhelming fog—Day laborers hauling ass from Escondido  Unspoken rush-hour grinds the individual with his self, contained this  Narcissist

 

It’s dreadful how success saturates like strati blanket  Untouchably  Loom  Cracks  Thunder rips silence from the ground  Anticipates joyful, like the coyote extracting prey or oily fingers seizing recyclable glass,

 

Dread  Lightning  Disintegrate jaw the maw grips socket nerves, ignitions revved and raring  Sweaty grips A steering wheel  Rain spatters  Windshield shatters  Demand  A product title reified dreadful patina N a m e  March toward death successful spirit

 

HA! Laxmi, goddess  HA!  Revered and repeated—same same—different day, same day, made of stone  Her daughter’s names, revered,  An agate craft, oh,  REVENGE ON MISFORTUNE!  THE END OF COMPETITION!  Success arrests revenge,  He gasps,  She  A living for the death  Undemanded breast  And whose breath is this?  Come, gather, collect.

 

dreadful, successful seizure  Agonal  Ignorant, me! I used to do it all for free  You did it for nothing, kid  It is okay. It is okay.  Rejoice, anyway.  But to reject the misery of a cajoling emptiness  This significant marbled heap, a leaden skirl on Saturday tense shoulders and lockjaw  Congregation sweet and unbecoming like a kindergarten collage

 

But for a success stills a head me inside of her  Approach I resent!  And someone repress this  Vengeance  Gestation  Snarl success’ twisting hollowed out  A bliss for each sin