They get whatever they want.
Sometimes they want to talk of justice,
or they deign to talk of justice
when what they want requires justice
to be spoken of.

They want power.

One time I sat in a jazz club,
and the spider web spun
from my cigarette
showed no trace
of any victim
before making itself
into a smile,
merging into the
artificial
light.

Outside the club
they whispered inside of limousines,
talking their power.

Here,
where appearances are everything,
where lies are the wardrobe of the emperor,

their box-seat smiles wear power.

(it is hard to wait
in the shine of the bare bulb
on the torn couch
yearning through a window

seeing metaphors
in the night,
invisible tenors singing inaudibly
inside their broken vehicles.)

The baseball players
in their bright uniforms
seem their fools in motley.

Watching the game
from these sky trenches,
you can feel,

in the break when the closer warms up,

even the gaps of the green field
fill with their
power.