(for Venus Verticordia)

You were born to a cold world,
two brief blips in the script of this old girl.
You were pranked by the body,
Blood full of copies, brain going lossy.
You were eight generations defiant
to punch chads dumb and throw heirs to the lions.
You were blind to the science,
deaf to the signs of the sirens at event horizons.

Bastards. Maniacal laughter
hocks that hot popcorn for disaster.
Planned for the future, braced for the ruse.
Paid for a feature, walked in a spoof.
The portent's poison and potent:
Ignore the moment and go through the motions,
take to the concrete and foment,
or yield to enjoyment and opt to contort to the formant.

The truth is the loom is a boon, a tapestry
mapped for the few, apt to adapt to the muse,
a sentence exhumed from the ruins,
and woven to human cocoons.
Make what you mean when you move.
The task is a proof, a Rosetta Stone for the runes,
tracks on the sand in the dunes where the prints show paths:
Wherever two gather’s a mass.

Face the facts:
the mercury drop in the off-square die is cast;
and the house don't play with the chips it has;
the whole card sharp deck is stacked.
Let these asses draw blanks while we draw the map
and form fists where they ought to have formed a pact.
But act fast. Go to. Poke through the mask.
Wherever two gather's a Mass. Gather. Amass.

What ears you have—
soft shells that corral where the waves impact;
what eyes that espy through that fringe of lash;
and canines that you ply on the prey you catch.
What hands into prayer have you clasped to ask
in the hour of need what you dreamt you'd have?
With what arms have you held when you pled it'd pass?
On what legs have you walked that elusive path?

What bodies have wrapped in a helix math
and then labored to grasp what it was they hatched?
And what love will last, when the past is collapsed
and bereft in the depths of a dark crevasse?
What works have you left for the world to have
long after your time has passed? And what sound is that?
What music in what contract with what words
on whose behalf? Well, I'm glad you asked.

Face the facts:
the mercury drop in the off-square die is cast;
and the house don't play with the chips it has;
the whole card sharp deck is stacked.
Let these asses draw blanks while we draw the map
and form fists where they ought to have formed a pact.
But act fast. Go to. Poke through the mask.
Wherever two gather's a Mass. Gather. Amass.