Now, the prophecy of the hammer is half-dead

Now, the prophecy of the hammer is half-dead
Lying transient in the gore of its cover
Of politeless politics; yet the echelons far up
Needs one reckoning more with the muzzled muscles
Which grind the world weird and wizened
Into powder, paltry dust or monolith
The pot of the worker needs its justice still
Needs its condiments, even a bread of salt capsized
In a diluted cup content to wait the night.
The day retires to its condemned shack
Count the ugly coins, the salary of the loin
There is only left the wages of indecent dying
In oblique envy to a dry laugh in an airconditioned room
Feasting on the death foretold in one afternoon.

You could not name the day complete, and counting
Where again you mortgaged your famished mores
Against the stick of Marlboro to appease
The horn of hunger against the holy door
Bleeding red writing and writhing your damnation
Hiring, demotion, promotion and castration
Into a mere bondman of your life’s remises.
Scope, again the gravel of your heavy morning
The concrete porous, your daughter’s tuition cementing
To catalogue a sweet sweat’s swift exact retribution.
Scope and scrape the graveled dawn dining dumbly
Cast the concrete, solid, liquid or deformed into union
And you lie aching for some cavort with the morning
Nailing the hapless notes, purchasing your fists.