You never know what you will find.
The eyeball of a cow. Weeping condoms.
Deserted televisions lacking flat screens,
no longer desirable, abandoned, forlorn.
A pair of torn, lacy,black *******
in an alley; must be a story there.
A cat with one eye and three legs,
devouring a vole. Scattered books awash.
A depressed, deflated hemorrhoid donut.
Soaked album of ruined wedding pictures.
Forever mute, broken, vinyl LPs.
Three shotgun shells but no shotgun.
Not a sign of the splattered victim.
Almost everything you can't imagine.
The devious flotsam and jetsam of life.
The ordinary stuff of nightmares and poems.
All the world's magnificent mysteries,
strewn like tears on streets and alleys,
waiting to be rediscovered, again,
like dangerous, lost New Worlds,
yours for the simple effort of walking.

after Ezra Pound*

Fly, my songs,
to both young and old.

Sing only the true
and beautiful things.

Do not betray me
as the lost
and lonely loser
I have become.

After the Big War,
his uncles came home
(some of them)
different men but
bearing souvenirs
of devastation.

One was a rifle,
a Karabiner-98,
with stains of death
on its wooden stock.

His uncle wouldn't say
just how he got it.

When his uncle died,
the weapon came to him.

It spoke to him
of glory and bravery.

He was proud to hold
that dead German's gun.

Not many years later,
he returned, shattered,
from his own war.

His only souvenirs
burned in his head.

One *** shrouded night
he tossed the rifle into
the Susquehanna River.

Never again did he
own another weapon.

Comes a time for the
circle to be broken.

When they were sixteen,
his second cousin Jenny
was a full on white trash
Siren with ice pick *******
and alluring, famished eyes.

She was a dream within
a ******* within reach;

a succulent Succubus.

Jenny was a danger and
temptation to gaze upon
because they were only
sixteen and only
second cousins and
she already knew what
power lurked between
her fervid thighs.

At forty, she was just
another dead **** head.

Some girls just seem
to grow up early.

At the end of the road is the road...*

I used to live in a town,
but all that remains
is empty storefronts
and peopleless porches,
hardly a community.

Strangers on the streets
do not know their
neighbors and never will.

The woods and creek banks
where I hunted pheasants
and fished for trout
are overgrown now
with McMansions full
of bloated consumers.

All the orchards grow
houses instead of fruit.

The only country left is
corn and soybean fields,
slathered in pesticides,
about as natural as ******.

Now it is two towns,
the one remembered,
and the one that is.

I live in the latter,
but prefer the former.

I would leave, but
six years ago I fell
into a man-trap and
haven’t figured out
how to escape yet.

Not that it much matters.

We all end up exactly
where we are.

****,
I am cold,
and I want
to hibernate
for a very
long time.
Maybe even
forever.

Death dropped by last night.

I never expect him, but he was lonely and I was available.

What’s up, I asked.

Same old ****, he said. You have no idea how hard this job is. Absolutely no one wants to see me. Ever.

Must be lonely.

Lonely, he said, you can’t imagine! Most of them die as soon as they see me.

Do you know hard that makes it to have a meaningful relationship? Or even get a date?

Death lit a cigarette, unafraid.

Oh, I can imagine.

Well, let me tell you; it’s ****** frustrating. Sometimes, I’d just like to cuddle, but I’m not into corpses. Yuck.

Death isn’t much of a conversationalist. Mostly he just whines. It’s all about him. He tends to ramble.

I just quietly let him talk. He did.

Have to be going, he said finally. Must meet the soon to be dead. Rush, rush, rush… and Santa Claus thinks he has it bad. Thanks for listening. See you soon.

No hurry, I replied.

I swear his missing lips smiled as he turned and left.

It took a while before I realized what I had just been spared.

Sometimes, it pays to be a good listener.