Aces & Eights

trading on polarities, but I have to get it down
before my own funeral, same as everything else that gets typed here:
two strains of human – the ones who: Live, the ones who: Not
doesn’t mean good VS bad, doesn’t mean
nice person VS miserable bastard, or hero VS bozo, not for a second
but tell me it’s not true.

The ones who: Live, they get to see
suns as black as Chinese ghosts
they stove through surfs of tears that fly up around them
like gravel, that blast out in fans around them on dark shores
where the neon doesn’t reach, misting in the gloaming
falling now like snow

some do terrible things.

Cromwell’s gunpowder like war’s cocaine in their mouths
as gearsticks are shoved in patterns of hate
on Stuka raids of aimless glory
they watch their veins bend like putty around
intravenous spikes, they throw another’s teeth into carparks
via one well-placed blow, they
steal wine and they go down on the neighbour against
her laundry wall as the day itself pretends
that a day means something, and looks the other way.
they die halfway up the hall and they
get a quick punch in for the beaten wife
as they frogmarch him to the patrol car, they
skateboard over all this Lego like they’re made of gelignite
they learn hard science, they say no to placebos
they say yes to leadership, real leadership, and
everyone thinks that they love it this way.
they shimmy down the drainpipe
adrenalized with banned love
and sail to Australia
as Ireland creaks in the background
and their great-great-grandchildren are proud of them still.
they stand on rooftops with tusked aliens
under doghouse moons
swapping cigarettes and little stories
then shake hands as the mothership looms

they wear their hearts like East India Company ensigns
get them dirty
then wash them with $2 soap powder
and wear them as new, and when
they drop the stylus on the wax
they drop it like they mean it
and some mirror catches their soul as it explodes
and drowns out all the static

the ones who: Not
titter and watch, titter and watch, and breath
and breath,
and measure
and sniff and wince, and titter and watch
and sleep and make a lot of gas
and stay true, stay so true
and titter and quieten and watch