Rich Man’s Family
Lying on cracked concrete
His body Leaking life like icing
running off a cake in the sun
The surgeon’s spirit spoke through
His son’s shattered jaw:
”Let this cup pass
It burns going down
Scorching my memories of you
Burning every bush
Eating tissue in great gulps
Until I watch as your skin collapses
Like a tent over broken poles.”
The surgeon’s son
When his splurge was on
Left wrecked cars with regularity
Riding waves of swelling coke lines
Pushed through his artery’s vines.
“Yea though I walk through the valley of Meth
I will fear no feeble, for thou art with me “
“Better living through chemistry”
His sister tanned till she blistered
She stirred bliss by the sun
Sacrificing meat and skin to Apollo
She prayed;”Thou art with me,
Thy rod and thy laugh comport me”
She could hear the cries
Of the harpies from Channel 8
“Pale and plump
Pale and plump”
And she said,”I will be slim and sunk
In the dark
Until thy ears hearken to my cries
O’ great sun God
And I am filled, warmed by the creams
Searching and filling every pocket and seam
Of flesh grilled and botoxed ,
I am your stuffed pepper on the grill.”
2
In the evening she retired to a dripping cave
Where her madness grew by water marinated in pool lights.
The paper headlines read:
“Child of Philanthropist dies at 50 “
In her cave she broke
Hid and ate in the sunken gardens
Where the mind drowns
Leaving odd shapes as it sinks
Candles flickered on her waxed hairless body
Giving a warm glow to blue skin.
The surgeon’s prince found his way
Up one hundred and one floors
On a last China white voyage
Breathing the dense air of his disease
Eyes locked permanently in reverse
Where he can converse
With Chrysler’s gargoyles who speak
With Aluminum jaws:
“Clack! Look at the steam that rises
From the scrambled touches
Of the ants below
Streaking the glass
In houses on the plains.”
“Clack! Trial balloons rise
To show us the new Jericho
And a new Joshua will bring it down
With a saxophone solo
Mocking the flayed crawling dogs
Barking in city hall’s yards
As heaps of concrete fall”
“Clack! This city will burn
In a flood of fire
Washing away the pole hangers
And the suit fillers alike
Your flight is ready sir
And it will reset
High and low.”
3
Together they stared at Chicago’s hazy glow with raw pity
While one last Byrd riff played on a stolen boom box
Then the surgeon’s son flew
And the whole city wondered
At his splendid exit.
Joshua Kight 9/8/10