on ______

B.J. Best

June 25, 2014

on invincibility

flashy thing,
all sparkles & moonshine,
& the bullets spatter on our blouses like jelly,
& fire can only whisper vague threats to our ankles.

what is it like?
lightning, clearly;
all atomic foofaraw;
the glint on the scales of a trout.

your eyes?
sure, they flashed briefly,
then your lashes batted
me senseless.

 

on the extra life

& there its promise dangles
in form as palpable as this which now i draw—

& poison in the ear, &
a blood-lined trench, &

the fateful plane
named after the pilot’s mother—

& so what: the colonnades
still aching gracefully—

& the faithful prostrating
at aureoled feet, saying—

i need this, i need this,
i need this.

 

on the next level

rumors soon melt into redundancies,
to high school from junior high,
one job replaces another.

or else the disconnect is dizzying:
i am in a jungle, i am in the arctic,
i am on a luxuriously jagged planet
with unreasonable beings.

what is hope?
above this ladder,
we will be canonized, holy,
& discharge our semiautomatic weapons
in rapture.