Straight Up

By: Russell Sebring

let us not dwell on guilt or the daily massacre on which it

feeds men love revolution for the revolt not the utopia of

their realization an extraction that dares speak names

conceived as a bounded whole an automatic vault their

approximation existing only on a pristine scale sacrifice

and cruelty the illegible reproduction (x marks the spot)

of a motherless gangbanger it seems the desire to profit is

stronger than horror or disgust far from the slaughter

there are two uses for the mouth an affirmation wherein

the low implicates the high in its own fall stratifications

for a schizophrenic ideal made up of facing mirrors and

asymmetrical cave-ins the crossfire ricocheting between

beholder and blindness scant assemblages made of rags

skewered with nails nevertheless a bidding war harbors

impurities open to structural analysis the semblance of a vanished people reconstituted from its scattered remains

within the unconscious the child is being beaten hushed to the point of disappearing a short burst of three to four

shots breaks apart and flows together mediated rhythms

of repetition experienced and missed two blocks down a

disciple decides who will live or die it is enough to turn meaning inside out like a glove to invert full and empty

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Russell Sebring is the author of several books of poetry, a novelist, journalist, and professional photographer. He lives near Cinderella’s Castle and Hogsmeade in Orlando, Florida.