levity is overrated.

and i'm breaking my promise. tough.

here's something like a poem. it doesn't have a title yet.

The lamp on the table

rests on the head

of a wild-eyed victor pushing a dominating

foot into the chest

of a flail-armed midget.

The pose (like Shiva

subduing the black dwarf

or any nameless

conqueror striding intentionally careless

across the ribcages he's laid bare)

is universal, the detail

excruciating:

nails in the arms of the fallen

so his agony can be adjusted,

made fresh against the slow accustomization

of the witness;

the lightbulb haloing

the upraised fist

sturdy boot

pressing apart

the sternum from its ribs.

I feel it.

The pressure around my 

own chest (building)

leaves no room

to doubt why that gesture

is one of domination.

Enough light

to distinguish supposedly sturdy white bones

seeps in around the boot's treads

west to east, against the tide of sunrise.

Whose boot is on my chest?

What desert seafloor 

spreads itself

beneath the light's probe, and

what does the bulb halo?