On the School of Roustabout Violence

Falling out of the light, every shadow cast
Breaks rank between the light and the dark
Within. Whether it is a blue doublet or a rakish stripe,
A gleam from a horse, an enemy of undue proportions,
You are sure to tumble, bow in an inelegant shape,
Cycling back around to a Middle Ages rondelet.
Fashionable blueprint for post-modernist deconstruction,
All strictures aside, all sleek memorized tables of
The rules of jousting rooted in roosts of billiards and
Brilliantine spirals, all negative consequences of
Confronting the enemies at large, such largesse
In painting with the patina of a clown show, an acrobatic
Leap backwards over your own moustache masquerade, so
Beautifully trained, trained to fall while juggling baubles
Of the After, to sandy patched love, and parched reasoning.
We remember you still, like all our fathers, all the conscripts,
Constricted and constructed with ineluctable willful guffaws,
Certainly, a new icon for Tarot, some irredeemable fallen patsy,
Patriarchy’s last romantic fever battle, the ground
and a dried river just beyond the bed, the garden,
curtains in windows.