I.

A smile in an office
chair and piles of affliction

learns that mirrors
are always constant. They portray
no less, they mirror the least

and the mighty. A stable
depiction, the brightest and the most

desired is that which obeys
the depiction not rendered
so much as confessed.

II.

An intelligent face, well-groomed,
obedient and curbed,

an intelligent suit, quite intelligent
and not less generally
than preening, something intelligent

is something proper.
A detail is that

when the smile is perfectly
smiled, no less, further,
timeless and at the perfect instant

III.

instant, not just any lip, the principal
duty is that beyond

a slander
there is still perfection.
Employ anger, employ

the hope that states that truly
states an obligatory
outrage, in depicting

now that here is rage
is valor.

IV.

Fear, what is an ideology, an ideology
is the affinity between a silver underlay

and something else, something else.
To embody it is
begun, it is objective

and less than that it has
it truly has the feral face,
and a surface

full of retractable
and less generally

V.

far less grit.

Wear a face, a cross-section
of hope, and create more
minuscule hope

than has ever been

resolved, unfold into this face
resolvedly, sensibly
not seeing, not seeing

[an accidental glance]

is so reflective and less
than that, it is an ideology, it is

VI.

a dull stare, it is rage
and uniformity.

The duty to shine
submissively

is reputed, it is why
there is no refraction, why

is there no
reflection, why

is there no singular
lessening.

07/08/2009

Author's Note: Published in Blackbox Manifold Summer '09

Posted on 07/08/2009
Copyright © 2024 Jim Benz