Rogue

He fucks up the trick on purpose despite
the waves of good advice he gets from the gallery
sitting on their boards behind a curtain of smoke.
He knows they’re probably right since they can see it
from the outside, but to him he wasn’t anything
if he didn’t arrive on his own at the start of the party.

Fat pigeons on telephone wires move their faces around
on constant watch for killers. The fire department pretends
to look busy while they lean against the brick walls
of the station hoping for a chance to put a fire out.
They rotate the prostitutes that stop in on occasional
third shifts to bring them food as well work on their vocation
to get paid for the donation of their time.

A loner after quitting every job he’s ever had buys boxes
of candy with his food stamps, and sells them in the city
to anyone that wanted to get high off the artificial crystals
that bring the sweetness out of anyone. He makes his money back
and more and then goes to the hat store on the older side of town to find
the perfect piece for him to make a statement.
His friends would tell him he looked like an idiot but he had found
something that made him feel like a character in a story,
and so he wore the hat with pride until eventually
he forgot he ever bought it.

They had finally caught him, the serial killer known for breaking
into young couple’s homes and torturing them until finally
cutting their throats. He had been nailing small animals
to homemade wooden crosses in his backyard since the day
he had free rein of his own land. He closed his eyes behind
his bars and through the stars he saw his master on her throne
above all constellations where there were no consolations
only power for the people unafraid of taking souls
that weren’t theirs.