as good as a top

without a bottom

​

a sestina after Ethel Merman on The Muppet Show

​

Force of nature made law to stay on top.
Laws of nature take all to the bottom.
This play makes tightropes work as a game
made for different angles and sized parts—
each piece lying with layers of true love—
which is always personal and private.

At first, one wants to know what is private
to have better chance of staying on top
of the words shared in auditions for love
as nothing’s worse than being left behind
to handle making heads or tails of parts
that took an awful wrong turn with one’s game.

It’s important to think smart hunting game.
How to make a skilled killing is private
affair on what’ll become of the best parts.
One can get loud and go over the top
or even scrape up the barrel’s bottom
seeking acclaim and attention (loving),

because the highest ones are mad in love.
Playbills list only gold medals for games.
This is why loners will yell, bottom’s up!
then open up, and tell thoughts most private,
or lose one’s temper and then blow one’s top,
exposing one’s insides, all torn apart.

Arbitrating locks of one’s special parts
is the show that makes up face of blind love,
but is it best to always be on top
in constant worry of losing the game?
All come from stories, secret and private,
where no one else understands rock bottom.

Save just one stage to go from the bottom.
How could one forget the medley of parts?
There's no high place too privileged or private,
or else every level would hold no love
inside, working for the magical game
that makes one think one should end up on top.

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Looking up above at the top, it feels better to hold onto privacy
playing the puppet’s part, shadow climbing and falling for spot-lit games
that take agency, because from down below comes the sounds of love,
& one can discover many highs from the view of openings with a lobotomy.

​