Waiting at the Free Throw Line

I am the shallow God pausing heaven

To check a message online.

I am the divorced magnate that

cannot stop earning to be served.

I am the balding talent scout

whose envy guides his pen's stroke.

All lettuce should be green or tan.

I am a mortal rubber band

stretched around infinity.

I am tired of the lying eyes

of nightclerks and valets.

I am an auto wreck of dismissal

overturned eighteen wheeler

buried in a drift.

We don't float on:

no toll, no passage.

The corner inverts itself

to put out your eye

if you gaze too long.

Habeas corpus; show me how

to find where my body ends.

I am trying to redirect the flows 

that are too natural for broadcast.

I am the declawed cat batting

at a flimsy mouse of yarn.

I am the damp-pitted night manager

whose footsteps ring out dread.

I am a battery

soon to freeze to the lakebed muck.

This is all to say:

Anyone can make a scene,

anyone with talent can make a song,

but all time left on the clock won't come off to see you win it.

WE RESPECT THE THOUGHT LEADER

The thought leader stops

mid-sentence to order his thoughts

And the bridge of his armless lenses,

then calls to the communicants

"We've got to reconfigure status quo

non-synergistic adversarial business

relations and time-bounded multi-variabilty 

concurrent exposure analyses"

Each sweatsocked Communicant

wrested tight against the typing 

device cradled immaculately in

tremulous fingerless gloves

and   absorbing 

 shining

infinitudes of algorithmic joy 

The banner above his head reads

WE RESPECT THE THOUGHT LEADER

ABOVE ALL. 

The glass wand is tippled 

to the glass of his lenses and the

Statistical Feedback Projection

is aired above the communicants 

while they work, fastidious little

tinkles at their devices growling

and steam around their ruby ears

as the thought leader repairs

to the bottom of the projection

examining flashing screens like

a nun to invalid limbs 

And he screams in a singeing lurid breath:

"REDIRECTED THERAPY-ORIENTED POLYPRINCIPLED ROUTINE STAFF

EVALUATORY EXPLORATIONS ARE SCHEDULED IN ORDER 

TO MOST EFFICACIOUSLY CONTRIBUTE TO A GLOBALLY PRO-SOCIAL 

AND RELIABLY DISRUPTIVE LOCAL BEING REPLICATION ENTERPRISE

FUNDAMENTAL MOTIVATIONAL RIGORS DEFINED THROUGH PUNATIVE EMANCIPATORY-RESISTANT INTERLINKING AFFILIATIONS 

ARE ESSENTIAL TO MEDIATED INTRAPERSONAL MORALE AUGENTATION 

AND EMOTIVE SPECTRUM REFOCUSING

ACCORDING TO UNITED PEACE DICTUM 82G.4.6 THE UTILIZATION

OF RAPIDHELPER REROUTER ASSISTANTS COMPORTS WITH

PRIMARY DIRECTIVE ALPHA THROUGH YARIS"

and wire-wrapped chains shining like mercury

stream from the Teleportholes at the feet 

of the Communicants adorned with

sensors and blinking diodes like crown jewels

and crawl up the backs of the legs of the 

Communicants and come out their sleeves

shooting woven metal tendrils over their

fingertips and coursing shocks of light while

Communicants record the thoughts 

of the Thought Leader

to the pitch and cadence and 

restructure his 

Thought Matrices for relevance

and cross-referenced dictum consistency to

be pulsed out into Ear Vessels,

Mugaphons and Listening Jackets 

and to all the Rice Leaders and 

Spooly Feces Leaders and Tractor

Leaders and Xanthan Nougat 

Production Leaders and to

all of the Valiant workers

In the land who labor

justly under the paragonal 

Moment-changers of the

Thought Leader at his helm.