Each line equivalent:
He is dead.
She is dead.
They are dead.
They is dead.
They all are dead.
You are dead.
You all are dead.
I am dead.
We never was.
I was dead. Then I restart, level up,
A new life at the left of every line, then
I suit the action to the word.
The soundtrack reminds me of French doors opening
On an infinity pool
And also unfinished business.
When he writes of the Plague,
Of his waterman, who had just conveyed him
Across the murky river, sick of it
Of his servants’ fathers, dead of it
Of the corpse he met on the stairs, overcome by it
I’m it. IT; it’s all in the game.
But enough about me; what about you?
We never was.
The right side of the line closes possibilities as I near it
Choices have been made, auto-correct asserts
As the sensus communis evaporates into a salt lick
Lost in the flicker and haze of pixels and high desert.
As I start again, again looking for an object
To fill my attention; intention the sort of thing
I wish I had, like a pocket square. A silencer.
It was the twenty-third gun that made the room look right.
A suite leaves a lot of space to fill.
All the geometry snapped into place
The crowds gather; they have not come
With the intention of meeting me.
I forgive them and set to work.
Sweet and useful, the crook of the trigger.
Steve Newman