Bat-winged zotz and Quetzalcoatl
laugh as ever Shield Skull did
to see the talking heads
in consort, on that totem, treat
the human heart as if were a thing
to be plucked from a pepper plant
in the garden of Tollan, and sung to
whenever the feathered serpent came to spill
his white lies upon the ground.
… And the zotz flew from their cave
to smother that golden disk above
with black, leathery wings and bring
the seven epochs of the Maya
to a close —
here, in Tikal, where no man
whose life was full to overflowing
comes to bleed and stave off
the cosmic hunger anymore.

[After selling his first 100 poems, WC Roberts bought a second-hand television set in 2011.  He can’t get Mystery Theater or Happy Days reruns on his rabbit ears, not way out where he is, so he Rarebit dreams of riding in the sidecar with motorcycle-tough Miss Marple as she jumps the shark —  or tries to — night after night.  Desperate for a satellite dish, he applies his imagination to works of fiction.]