Some victims end up in a ditch somewhere
bullet holes in their heads

Others are buried six-feet-deep
in neglected pastures
or end up drawing
a last breath
in a seedy motel room

They become falling stars
their brief bios featured on
crime shows
their sad tales
filling the airwaves
their names forgettable
histories unremarkable
victims whose renown emerges only
from their sudden shocking demise

They become fodder
for the crime junkies...
curious insomniacs
watching docudramas -
america's nightmares
playing out on millions
ot tv screens

You can sense the sheer terror
victims feel...
their eyes flickering in the dark
when someone's hands
silence them
their screams muffled by
dissonant music swelling -
a crescendo of shrieks and sounds
building toward
that awful
final fade

.
I once was young on shores of pond,
Deep in clump grasses mossy, longed
By seasons that turned shining winds,
Older than years etched into tree rings,
I played at song in the rushes of marsh,
Danced to moon from my bedroom loft
And in the theaters of starlight shadow,
Wrote my fables after sleeping narrows,
Dreamed dreams as young boy should,
Rethinking Sophocles in hemlock wood
I named the flowers wildest within sun,
Built forts from the forest floors of ruin,
Burned in rashes of ivy, itching poison,
Swam by water snakes in mucky unison
Spring was tireless as nettles and bees,
A wide river glided into the seven seas,
Pond was lake and oceans uncharted,
Skies rolling thunder after lightenings
More gold than lots' aspirations prised,
All showers flamed, Promethean fires.