the smart ones
a poem
so I’ll shoot when I’m through
with a no-tell
hands held apart to ask
what is your question
you know do you not
the New York Times built an architect
with dissimilar words
on a disparate junction
always the smart ones writing manuals
slick as ripe papayas
panties slid down over cerebral hips
making miracles out of strife
in tall offices
the brightest brains held property
to forbidden conditions
engineered vestibule utopias
as the Navy
took Mark Twain’s uterus to bed
with chocolate corporations
its warm thighs
pressed onto cold porcelain
bright, savvy, keen, and beatific
all the mechanisms rehearsed
the learned communions
and therapeutic charismas
raised up from the fallen towers
the S&P 500 smelled
dispossession gratified by a fleshlight
bohemian lust
surplus spirit sold in the tabernacles
of slick divinity
sat on the ad-man’s face
to grind a remunerative bliss
with these opulent intellects
the smart ones did a long song
as Mumford died
in Sophia’s withered arms
and bashful guardians ate meat
and Princeton spread her legs
like butter sauce
for the throbbing ontology
of full-spectrum disorder
a podcast slipping the bonds
of starry religion and faulty art
the shrewd ones there on the mantelpiece
held in a common faith
assured by the bullets of restive captivity
hungry on highways of stimulation
ran campaigns
fucked like bonobos on telepathic agony
drove Robert’s rules like bored Maseratis
harvested pallid discontents
in the Temple of the Pious Pricks
. . . these smart ones . . .
built programs with jealous bows
shined machines with blood
and fashion sense
the smart ones are always me
(you know this)
exuberant in our perspicacity
somewhat exotic in our compatibility
we can feel each other up
like sly freshmen on a bus
drink Saturday on Friday
hire art directors and issue proclamations
blandish our hair-free genitals
with the rags of proximity
master the tongues of law
to deflect and make counter-accusations
with pecuniary restraint
(of course)
ascending along a corpus cerebellum
we tour the soiled boiler rooms and litter
the plastic trash of popular adjectives
the knowing looks of fine leather
here, look at these perfect teeth
a dental Stradivarius
below a zygomatic arch
this was one of the smart ones
or so they insist
chasing sex and shrimp sauce
along the polished corridors of lack
and punctured by uninvited dreams