six-example drawing-room

several dozen residents in 16mm flesh
pray tell of inexhaustible human folly

from crossbows and smokes
to choral singers and amateur potters

hive terminology in a six-
example drawing-room

youve got british east india co. tea
ive got ill-fitting small pox blankets

the flesh is a synecdoche
of puritan america

all cudgel and capitalist malice
without explicit commentary or voiceover

an endlessly hilarious tribute
to self-deception and craven will

a particular geographic conceit
and manifest delusion

What I’m Reading:

We need some pines to assuage the darkness
when it blankets the mind,
we need a silvery stream that banks as smoothly
as a plane’s wing, and a worn bed of
needles to pad the rumble that fills the mind,
and a blur or two of a wild thing
that sees and is not seen.

— Marvin Bell / “Around Us”