Alms of Ouroboros

Those politics
will eat you for breakfast
and leave the empty plate
smeared with grease

That’s not God in your needle
That’s not love in your message
That’s not virtue in your stained glass
That’s not power in your eyes

I can see you
the same way I
can see straight through myself

just another tail
chasing itself
around the cycle
we have suffered
and survived before

Mounds of dirt
vials of blood
bones and ash
piled atop the earth

Anthills
Molehills
Kingdoms
Fiefdoms
Empires

are all
sooner or later
eventually
kissed by their sacrifices
and smashed
by the hands of time

That’s not gold in your teeth
That’s not love in your mission
That’s not honor in your oilfields
This is not your reaping of wheat

This is a reprint of work originally published in Dissident Voice.

Scott Thomas Outlar hosts the site 17numa.com where links to his published poetry, fiction, essays, interviews, reviews, live events, and books can be found. His work has been nominated for the Pushcart Prize and Best of the Net. Outlar was a recipient of the 2017 Setu Magazine Award for Excellence in the field of literature. His words have been translated into Afrikaans, Albanian, Dutch, Italian, French, Persian, and Serbian. He has been a weekly contributor for the cultural newsletter Dissident Voice since 2014. His most recent book, Abstract Visions of Light, was released in 2018 through Alien Buddha Press.