After Profound Concentration …

. . . this slick arrogance spread
across the marble floors of legal pages
might slide like fragile plates, not

that purposeful grace of outer magma,
our volcanic firmament
so innocent of violent intent

but only the inept intent and entente of leadership,
all smiles, all power riding easy
on ample loins

slumming far from admissible distance
outside their zoological display of distrained childhood –
fear-bound, ground in cages,

no promise or hint of emancipation –
only dry wind from hired functionaries,
an apparat of withered mouths.
*

Institutions, like
governments ungoverned,
living only to perpetuate ad quo status,

must rot to the skeletons of nothing
but themselves having gained no flesh
but only the smell of dead ideals

sizzling on ignited covenants –
the stench of deceit, the dust-fragrance –
far-distant obliviated life
*

by rude calculation mis-engineered –
the memento mori of each child’s breath
publicly disdained.

Richard Fenton Sederstrom was raised and lives in the Sonoran Desert of Arizona and the North Woods of Minnesota. Sederstrom is the author of eight books of poetry, his latest book, The Dun Book, published by Jackpine Writers' Bloc, was released last fall. Read other articles by Richard Fenton.