Early morning 
 searing beach -
 low tide, 
 the whiff of
 fresh brine vegetable decay.
 
 A faint breeze mutes the humidity
 like a flirt whispering
 sweet nothings in your ear,
 
 making promises
 she will never keep. 

 
 Sometimes there’s nothing 
 you can do but scream.
 
 Rage against the losses:
    loss of eyesight and hearing
       and strength;
    loss of interests;
    loss of love,
      or  loss of
      love’s attention;
    loss of energy;
    loss of ideas;
    loss of dreams;
    loss of the erotic;
    loss of appetite;
    loss of those who care
       for you, and those
       you care for;
    loss of mind,
       especially
       loss of mind.
 
 Rage against the
    impersonal universe;
 rage against the 
    lack of justice,
    lack  of merit,
    lack of luck.
 
 Rage against regret
    as thick as molten tar,
 rage against the arctic freeze
    of heartbreak.
 
 Rage against the plutes,
    those hungry ghosts
    sucking the rest of us dry.
 Rage against the whores
    of commerce.
 Rage against the loss of ideals and
       that feeling of
       being bamboozled.
 
 Rage against a higher force, 
    if you believe in
    that diabolical jester
    who deals the cards
    and rigs the games.
 
 Sure,
    there’s wisdom that comes
    from getting old,
    deeper acceptance 
    and even a flash
    of it’s really OK;
 
 but sometimes there’s
 nothing,
 and all you can do
 is to goddamn scream. 

 So these things
 washed up or
 put away -
 patterns of solace
 within the lesser seasons.
 
 Dreams ascend the cold bones,
 rising with the virtue
 through ethereal channels,
 
 while physicality is
 avoided
 or denied.
 
 Repair
 of the broken
 is a charity
 unto itself. 

 
 Litany of a nation;
 beyond box scores, excrement,
 and inflammatory holograms. 

 Litany of nothing;
 scattered attention wasted
 on gossip and garbage. 

 Litany of the end;
 impatient benedictions of duplicity
 by the dozens. 
 
Litany of giving up;
 throbbing exhaustion and
 acceptance of an end.  

 It’s impossible 
 to improvise in quicksand;
 nothing solid to seize,
 only one direction -
 gone.