After the Fire and Fury,
after the lies were consumed
there on the hearth in the ashes
just loose teeth, the only thing left…

…those teeth without jawbone to ride on
no power to bite my soft skin
and no way to grit and to grind
and I stare, there is nothing to mind

my life changed…the nights became darker
and yet somehow more restful too
days took on a crystalline quality
I realized that I had begun

to view my entire life’s history
past/present/future all at once
as mere memories ashy and cold
in the ashes there, deep in the hearth

What’s the precise time, the moment,
in the life of a country of one,
a country where Samson’s been blinded
by his lust and his own hot despair

and self-tyranny takes hold in terror?
It rarely happens in an instant;
it arrives imperceptible, slow
and, at first, the eyes of the hopeful

adjust…and pretend all is well…
I was drifting in one endless present
(the present, pray tell what that is?)
line of vapor, invisible instant?

But now I see clearly, no filter,
the connection of past and the future,
between motion and rest, it just lurks there
as if it’s in no time at all…

and what is it, lying there useless?
It’s just us (justice), it’s simply us.