The Boxing Ring, The Skating Rink

by variousignatures

To Brice Maiurro, whom I assume is my contemporary.

As far as it goes
the kids play their sports
and the adults try to murder
one another
every once and a while
a stray bullet 
shows up
where it was not intended
Etta Terry 
shooting herself in the head
with a revolver
after being beaten severely by 
John Arthur Johnson in Havana
trying to punch oppression
to smithereens 
smash the Pottawatomie Giant
‘The Great White Hope,’ impossible
well, until Dempsey
ended his skull
or were they just searching
for Nuria Martí
on the crystalline ice
in the hanging for of Z?
and so plays the incessant song
of lovely love
the song soul of my country
the soul’s song of my soul’s soul
i love the song
it repeats with unbelievable time 
practically fractured and disintegrating
while the fighters skate in the ring
twirling their lovely soul hatred
towards one another 
full of convention
the songs of competition
that will end us all
yet returned to the rink
they’re still searching
for the olympic beauty 
who spurned a local diplomat
who nodded towards the
edge of humanity
for purity
the dreams of war criminals
singing a song in German
in a southern country 
bringing with them recipes
for sausage
and implications of new world orders
Chilean palettes altered 
under their noses and collective will
and before i go to sleep 
i drink a bottle of water
and ask myself
“when i awake
will i be
altered?”
i would ask for you to throw
the archaic tool
typewriter 
at my head and end the good fight 
leaving the blatant evidence
and buying a laptop
or spiral notebook
the first page scrawled with a sentence
‘addiction is a four letter word’
life
is a sexually transmitted disease
and all the other things i learned when
my amalgamation commenced 
and i surely set the pace
at which 
mania dissolves the squat house
with the mold eating everything
and an intoxicating
drone
circulatory system of sounds
that brakes my jaw every single day
my gloves undone
the pacifist of centuries
listening 
intently.
-v.t.s.