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Uncut stone whittling away at cracked souls,
boning Sunday morning saints down
bare back hallways, hot dish on plates,
misplaced disgrace situationally
sexualizing fags, jagged pricks
who have all-but-lost their edge but
not their rage, jaded and overpaid taste-
makers making them regret it
before servicing big-cocked, blank-
shot producers bank-rolling obscene things
far worse than being seen alone
in an unincorporated
company town, where what-it-takes to “make
it” means even being ignored
needs an audience, a script, and
a crew, making-do making them do them
in crowded corridors, grinding
to moaning messes of nameless
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mates, pawns checking-out of Hollywood’s last
great, hollow, palatial hotel
at dawn those smug house detectives
giving good face prowl, recalling how hard
fate’s unforgiving henchmen drive
home, with cold hearts and heavier
hands (in fingerless gloves), what “sir, it’s time
to go…” hidden behind smiling,
unrelenting hellos make their
third-warning opening of shaded eyes
no more charitable than fame’s
fading fast, before battalions
of admen can bide notoriety’s
tide flooding over a night of
silent crimes, or lies, colouring
brighter the sobering look of one’s own
grave, digging it with silver forks
tongues attuned to the nuanced licks
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of another’s wounds afford those marys
who console johns, paid hourly, trained
in escaping the unveiling
before legends can trace their martyrdom’s
origins to their artistry’s
beginnings, creation’s timely
fixers making of love’s errors (and god’s)
what no craftsmen can erase from
the equation, when enough comes
near too-much and “the way out” kills itself
off, when what softens light’s burn blurs,
existentialists taking from
life’s journey its watery illusion
of eternity, guiding d(r)ivers
to their exits, going down with
men of discretion renowned for never
telling how they got into it,
or who gave them the business.
