Bone-china alimony,
paid in teeth; a ceremony
for all you unborn kids
your soft bones of xanax
firing, knees-jerking
at the guns that won the west.

Dies lost and recast,
gambling on the hard and fast
grown up on the underdog
'that all in first now will later
end up coming in last--always'
Then our heroes drowned in hallways
Shame nor fame makes no difference to the dead
the all-breathing, teething and estranged
not never believing in anything but jealousy.
always tasting, but never full of vicious victory. 

Rest in peace:
Ire in pyres
smoke escaping their lips
whispered damnations to their sun-gods
A thousand times a day
until all but carbon copies did remain.
a lesson learned from a mountain of mistakes
writhing corpses, from which we take
not for which they stood but how they fell
We could ask them for the truth, but history wrote
'they'll never tell.' 
So we rinse and repeat
one side clean-- what a feat!
until the coin flips again
and sheds us like the snake it is
eating its own tail: calling it progress. 
"It's just business" -- but I digress.
I redress.
I relapse with intent
much to purposeful detriment
self-help's favorite malcontent
feeding a chainsaw's need for the paper industry.
What a sick, incestuous exchange;
I'm perfect except where there's a market for it.
The rest of me? 
Reuse, renew, recycle.
Grains of a million, small like sand
praying to our archangel michael
because god's away on business.