Approximate Running Times

" Approximate Running Times "

by Suzán Jiván
Mom & Mom-
Mom Suzán

Approximate running times
for playwrights at the end of life
left feeling lighter with surprises
like glinting comic relief of singer-
songwriters schmoozing unsung lives


dramatically
making the case
for music labels
sometimes devastated
onstage as hard labor


finding conceit distasteful
in adaptation to the fatal
as impassioned evocations
only a stone's throw away


during police raids
whose star us fading
having concocted
blurring of the lines
ensnared by desire


contrived by,
"not quite"
manipulated by,
"much of the same"
but, "not always"
like icy-fingered slights
of rat-raced satires


as scant dialogue
in unidentified environs
of isolation having survived
mechanical bull rides


like triangles nearing the eye
safely gliding ever tightening
smashing adversaries into scrap
in final battles as spectacular
last stands befalling the land


aimlessly dancing
with knockout whammies
after taking a stab
at bedraggled sea chanteys


awaiting the release
legally and logistically
as harrowing
as filling in the blanks
as distractions
in the middle of the pack
of self-analyses


rather bitterly mixed up ineptly
repeatedly breaching the brink
while riding bicycles and grinding teeth
illicitly limiting the tedium
by not revealing grisly incredulity


passing too closely
neither joining in nor quitting
after fracturing shoulders
and collarbones and coping by doping
cloned human hormones
in sensational overtones containing
the most overblown footnotes


like less glamorous roles
as the Dow closes
unbeholdingly for shareholders
in nagging yard sales
for wayward candidates


after the train has left the station
with dividend payments
having helped shape
ricochetting glass makers


irreverent for decades
like bedroom behaviors
appropriated on bedside tables
as aspirations of fung shui...