in plain print, he tells me it's a hawk
with a broken wing

I close my eyes...all I see is a black,
greasy bird, barely bigger than a sparrow

not even worthy of Poe-itizing into a raven;
certainly not a fierce falcon

why can't I see thee, red tailed hunter?
you hiding in clouds adrift behind my eyes?

no, the crow's there, shining in a gold sun; seems
I'm not destined to imagine grander birds of prey

at least not today, reading your words of broken things,
the dark clouds of your dreams

you found me
in a second hand store
on Lincoln Avenue

you bought me
for nine dollars and tax because
you thought I was a mandolin

you told Tryone, the clerk
who would sell me into slavery, your
wife always wanted one

you took me home to your
twelfth story apartment; I discovered
your wife was gone many years

but her photo on the living
room wall got to see me, and hear
your lament:

you wished you would have
found me seasons sooner--but my
strings were rusted even then

my last song played at a bar mitzvah
before your hair turned white, before
your wife's many colored regrets

you played me but once and didn't
like what I had to say--you tossed me
from your balcony to the street

I made the same flight your wife did,
landed in the same spot; yes, I suspect she was  
more a disappointed music lover than you

a yellow flower
or two,

ones I can't name,

survived June's arid,
brutal assault

ant mounds abound; scorpions
aren't despondent

Timothy grasses, weeds
don't complain

always there are
mesquites

stubborn adolescents
unaware steer dung left
their ancestors here

this is not a place one
can walk barefoot

not even the Comanche
had such soles

I tried, but you
lashed out

leaving goatheads
and other burrs
in my heels

perhaps to
remind me

I bought you,

but I own
nothing

Grazing the edges of deep shadows
Pushing away the darkness unseen
Hoping any little light, to guide one
Through any coming Hell, between
Now and journey's arrival to then

©  2017 Jim Davis

Dylan is dead.
no, not Bob, you Philistine,
Dylan Thomas who implored us
to rage against the night;
so are a passel of poets
and penners, but not I

Emily heard her fly buzz,
well before her eyes shut; she
was a wee bit obsessed
with the reaper

Hemingway's also a goner;
guts enough to shove a shotgun
in his mouth--mostly I wonder if
he tasted blue gunmetal like I did,
and who cleaned his brains
off the wall?

nobody had to clean a red dollop
of mine, for the firing pin was askew
and all I got was a click, and a sense of shame,
and impotence more flaccid than
the one which put the barrel
in my mouth

hell, how hard is it
to **** yourself--I guess harder
than I thought, since I never bought
another rifle

so Dylan is dead
Em and Hem too, but you
are reading these lines without
contemplating your own demise
I suspect

after all, it's early spring
and a time of new things
clawing their way into the light
thinking nothing of the terminal
night -- but it's just a sun dip away:
ask Dylan or Hemingway, or even JFK
but I wouldn't bother the Belle
of Amherst

she would make parting
sweeter than sorrow, and she
never tasted the cold lead, or spoke
with fear or dread of the dumb
and the dead

she never murdered
men in black pajamas  
in a forest primeval...

I didn't see their spirits
ascending, in ribbons of light,
only rivers of their red blood
soaking the green ground,
yet today ravenous
for more it seems

why would she rage
against the good night, when
her carriage waited patiently for her,
and immortality, her vessel bound
for a light Dylan and I
will never see