"Vishnu-handed at the last, I watch perched the world unravel from my needle-pile of discarded trophies; stretched reel to reel, my soul cannot fold. 5 Swept by sweet victory into the electric chair, I listen to my own slick stammer and applaud. Whose hammer beat in time to my wincing tongs? I held my grammar steady, and I stared TV-asphyxiated like The War into every voter's lair. 10 Now alone in my high estate with the jury's minions closing in, I listen to the mystery play my sub-subconscious penned; my Quaker's conscience holds me flinchless and appalled, I ached after my own interest and called that aching 'World.' What has the salutary commission convened to stage-whisper 15 into the nude mikes that flood their mouths like flies? I cannot wait! I click on the humming set.... You know, when I was young, with the one hand inched out to nab the ribbon at the high-school track meet panting like a wildebeast chased to death, what 20 was Vishnu to me but a ten-handed castanet player?"
From the collection "Contemporaries"
Written by Gregg Glory [Gregg G. Brown]
More information available on gregglory.com.