1.

The night Beethoven detailed his loud affections for expiration in the Heiligenstadt Testament he dropped his pen and heard nothing. He stood at the apex of equal footing, lifted his nose to the impending eve and descended behind the notion of Napoleon slaughtering muddy waters to build a dry bed for orchestral fingers to flex arthritis, lift their own pens, signing paychecks for those who dug behind couch cushions and perfumed fingertips in the copper scented smells of economic recovery.

2.

Clay tablets documented

Monetary efforts to describe a price

For the human condition.

Cardboard frames encapsulated

Jealous paper trails. Withheld

Funds in an effort to balance

The budget.

Honest laborers left their earnings in a pile,

Doused the contents in gasoline

Set fire to what they’d done.