which explains why there's no hurrying
the bad guy when he's got the good
guy right where he wants him
sweating under the industrial saw blade
that advances so slowly you wonder
how such a speed setting could ever be
useful in the manufacture of anything
though it's just the thing for the bad
guy who lives to savor the almost
unbearable anticipatory sweetness of
death drawn out to an eternity
of close-ups alternating between two men
(every pipe in the place is steaming) who share
a certain moral fanaticism and a passion
for the pretty office girl turned militia-queen
who is just now regaining consciousness
and taking her cue from the swelling
music is maneuvering a giant meathook
onto a giant pendulum and still the bad guy
has time to finish the good guy with the flick
of a switch but he chooses instead to method-
ically turn and take the meathook full on
with a slo-mo grimace and a long tapering moan
that always means a happy ending.











From Poetry Magazine, Vol. 187, no. 1, October 2005. Used with permission.