By Connolly Ryan

Eerily guardless at this ungodly hour,
the palace seems pale and lost
as a human baby in a fake jungle.
Now bust into it and dismantle
whatever’s left of its moral clarity.
The air is pungent with gastrointestinal spices:
a proboscis meets hibiscus affair.

Of visceral hilarity the wind moans.

The faces of people are blotched and smudged
with russet asterisks and rouge skin-tags
that epidemiologists would consider
lucratively incurable.

Jackals and hyenas will flower again
in the hiatus between transitions.
Nor will sacrifice be an option.

All forms of communication
will convey a single deadpan truth:
Luxury was a mistake.
But until then there will be time enough
to party like you are on television;
to explore and exhaust your preferences
with furious abandon; to screw your neighborhoods
in all three senses of the verb: coitally, ethically
and with an actual screwdriver (ideally
to the brain or groin for grandest damage).
Declare a war on monogamy
and crash all intimate picnics
donning Viking-antlers and orgy-goggles,
all the while shrieking:
“THE SKI-MASK IS THE LIMIT”
to all who refuse to listen.

Remember: you have your orders
and we have your daughters, so move!

Connolly Ryan

Copyright 2012