To Jason Allen Chandler—

                              *

To a man for whom all things are possible
     everyone is a threat, everything
     a doubt in his plan, and barrel-chested like
     a Borden, I keep my explosive temper
     close at hand, next to my side like a weapon.

You are perceptive as always: dark inner-
     workings, quite fractured, in that girl (in them both,
     in them all?)—I grin widely whenever I
     think of you—giving my Self, doubtless, even
     more wrinkles, those things my wisdom shows the world.

But what of this art that does not yet have an
     audience? Ours which has so much promise—too
     much, in fact—for us to just let it sit and
     not impact heads, to attack thoughts with concepts
     our punches pack? Words that kill with no regrets.

Tell me, sir, do you possess, until bringing
     into being, those wicked things you wish to
     manifest? Are you spirited? Do you bless
     your workspace with libations you sprinkle with
     fists clenched? Is it magic in your love’s liquid?

I remember, now, how you drank of these same
     questions when, years ago, we sought to tame our
     familiars, those beasts of memories—how your
     name met my mine again, before fame dug in
     its claws, and immortality’s jaws bit us.

Swallowing it all, I want to know more—if
     you keep hid between your teeth the story we
     consecrated to silence? The gilded one,
     that tongue’s golden legend the ending of which
     tickles the throat with those treasures beyond price.