hypodermics lined up like firing squad rifles, loaded with Morpheus' mortal brew

at this "humane" place, where we stare in the face of every critter we "put down"

felines, canines, by the score--there will always be more

we do it Thursdays; each gets its own black plastic bag, for a trip to the incinerator

courtesy of the county's grandest
crematorium

that has donated the friendly fire for our four legged friends;

we watch the trails of smoke fill the night sky

there is no Zyklon B to fear--not here, where we use shots instead of showers

and pass the hours scratching the ears and petting the rumps of those we slaughter with sleep

he lay in a bed at the Salvation Army
the last in a row of bunks he knew well;
through the window, he heard birdsong

not the lugubrious refrain
of mourning dove, but a song
he did not recognize, sad nonetheless

the captain brought him ice chips
and let him stay, for he knew this was
the closest thing to home the old man had

this and a spot under the bridge
he shared with bats, most springs
summers and autumns, until the first frost

never again would he be outside
never again would he see the bridge
never again would he leave this bed

how nice to have music
in your final hours, he mused, how nice
to have a bed and pillow to rest his head

outside the window, sitting cross legged
on winter's dead grasses, a girl played her
flute, unaware of the audience she entertained

she was young enough to be his
granddaughter, but was not, for his only child
had died of black blood cancer, when she was nine

in all his years he'd heard myriad
birds' song, chanting chirps wedded to
the winds, winsome, but not like today's trilling

what he now heard faintly, as if through
warm water, soothed him, lulled him closer to
a deep sleep, one he knew would come soon enough

he did not fight it--take a nap he thought,
when he woke, the lullaby would still be there,
white winged creatures would yet make song
though now in great flight, far from this bed

only three days ago,
you blotted out the Sun,
casting as many spells
as you did shadows

tonight, you're but a sickle;
shaved to that anorexic shape
by the third stone from a ball of fire,
which couldn't make a dimple
or a pimple on Canis Majoris,

still I stared at you, luna
imagining the ancients, barefoot
on this same rock, who saw
magic in your pocked face

how far we've come
in scant millennia, making tubes
with their own blessed fire, to blast
us from the bounds of earth

so we could look back
at our spinning blue orb
and compare small steps
to gargantuan leaps

he looks to that place
hidden in the grey folds and
white matter where the words
and images are birthed

all he sees are blue beans:
jelly beans, frijoles beans, kidney
beans--all as blue as robin's eggs,
strewn on a pitch black field

he waters them to see
if they will grow, for surely
this field is of magic or
at least dreams

but, it seems, nothing
sprouts; the fallow field remains
the same: a bed for countless
beads of blue

he lays his stylus down,
a sword he wielded for naught,
closes his eyes for a final view,
and all he sees is blue

they pass each other on the paths
histories trailing behind them like
smoke from their cigarettes, which
most gave up eons ago

some wield two sticks, to stave
off the inevitability of their demise;
arms, legs, zig-zagging like
cross country skiers

others have the blessed cane of age
a teetering tether to this world, their
backs bent forever making a question
mark, a parenthesis at best

yet others have staffs, shepherds
of invisible flocks, ones they tend to
now in a world only they inhabit, looking
backwards at grazing apparitions:

lambs of their lives they
long ago sacrificed, sheep they
sheared--wool woven into coats
for other old men with sticks

who have their own histories, their
own fleeting flocks, their own encounters
with stick toting strangers, their own
walks on well worn paths

lone falcon high in flight, what grid of ground
is magnet to your sight?

what engrams form in fine folds
hidden in your skull?

do you recall all that passes below
on a fleeting flat earth?

do you see my shovel fighting
the stubborn caliche?

to put my wife and child in dead dirt,
before you or your brethren dive

perhaps you will take pity on me, and see
you have other places to light:

the parched prairies around me,
where I pray the creator has left
you more tantalizing temptations
for your talons

they could see the Rockies on most clear days

though their ranch was as flat as any Kansas cornfield

the slopes cursed them with wicked storm now and then

but other than a few shingles off a roof and a steer or two struck by lightning, their place was no worse for the wear

Father and Son ran this place as did two generations before them,

and after chores one eve they watched a flood they thought only God could command

they flipped a coin to decide who would take a truck of supplies and who would stay to tend to the herd

the boy won the toss--just as well the old man figured; his spirit was not as ready for the road as it once was

he helped his boy load all the pickup would hold and his only son left on a clear dawn

he sliced the Oklahoma Panhandle while most folks were still eating breakfast

Amarillo was in his rearview by lunch; he had a hunch he could make it all the way there by sunrise the next day

odds are he would have, had a fleeing Houstonian not fallen asleep at the wheel and pulled into his lane under a midnight sky

the doctor from a Texas town with a name the father wouldn't want to remember assured him his boy went fast...and didn't suffer

once the father got his son's mangled body in the ground,  the old man took his grief straight to the store, filled up another truck and left his stock to fend for themselves, as he took a journey his boy was not destined to complete

he didn't shed a tear while he unloaded the supplies on a new coastal plain, amid scores who did not lose a son

though surely he was not the only one, he thought, who would cry himself to sleep that very night

where waters his son never saw receded,
far from where the mountains meet the plain

we* try to guide *you through some you's

(how you are, who you are, why you are)

we are there with you
hunting for an epiphany

(which rarely comes)

if we fail with reflective notions
we have some magic potions

(though)

you won't be painting like Picasso
once our chemistry does its trick  

(perhaps)

a line from a classic flick,
or a paragraph from your favorite book,
would be better feeding for the soul, than
talking time spent on our couch, with us
unraveling your psychic ouch

freeze like that self assured fool London gave us
in "To Build a Fire"

so do I avoid the wild Yukon, or learn to ignite kindling
before I succumb to the deep sleep?

maybe I just write a different tale

roadkill diners
Texas highway cleaners
a swooping trio of you--a blue
black choreography

what
had you spotted
on the hot
asphalt?

in a decade
of seconds, you
vanished--or actually
I did, leaving a wake
of you in my own
wake:

a shimmering heat mirage
in a rearview mirror, a memory
more mythical than your feast

not supposed to be used as a napkin
to be coated with red blood ketchup

or yellow mustard custard from a dead
dog's bun

though it is, and while flown at half staff for a fallen hero, some cool cat on a Harley has it between his legs,

the stars and stripes a candy coating for his gas tank

but that guy will sure let you know
he's a prideful ******' part of the Patriot Guard,

trailing behind a casket and grieving mama, defending them against all enemies, fantasized and domestic

so get your ***** up when a $uperstar
sings the hymn--an anthem for ****** youth,

or an inspiration for further folly,
whether it be Khe Sanh or Fallujah,

all who fall get a banner folded in precise proportion

kneeling is for "sons of *******,"

or maybe a medic under fierce fire trying to save a buddy,

who didn't make it through the "perilous fight," and  gives less than a **** who sits or stands

as for me, I no longer salute--long ago excommunicated from that proud command

but I guess I'll place a hand on my heart, not sure if I do so to follow the code,

or check to see if it's still beating in the land of the free, the home of the brave

so keep those flags a comin' and keep the cannon fodder drummin'

those who stand tall tomorrow, will do little to assuage the sorrow,

of those who paid for the privilege to take a knee, or sing songs mindlessly with thee or me

while millions of eyes were on
the skies, I looked to the flat earth:
there, shadows shapeshifted, and
like scalloped creatures crawled

they were but ephemera, photon art,
of which my silhouette was a part: under
sacred penumbra, which augured other
light and darkness I will never see

I found your solitary grave:

a "t" bound by twine--two sticks from a mesquite

no name, your eulogy likely the
high desert winds,

and perchance a disappointed caw from a vulture for you were covered well

deep in dirt, hard work for any steel,
but after the toil

your grave digger took time to craft
a crucifix

otherwise, I would have stepped on your
grave,

an ignorant desecration averted by love's anonymous labor,

and the ancient blood on the cross

nor Horace--my Ars Poetica was ars psychotica,
cannabis my myrrh

though I must have known Homer, for my thumb
took me across vast asphalt seas

where I was tempted by sweet sirens, and didn't resist, while others crouched crowded in desks and read tales of two cities

unaware I was ever there, hungry, road weary, far from their land of oblivion

on stone throne above me, in silent dominion
over his kingdom of cacti

this royal reptile knows I am here, prostrate--a simian cast
to the hard earth by a snake stung steed

this lizard saw the serpent strike, and my ten foot fall,
long as the length of sinful history

spine broken, all life's labors lost; no limb can move me
from this ground

the only sounds: my shallow begging of air and the mean symphony
of desert winds--their howling to be my dirge

the saurian monarch will be the lone child of God
to see my eyes close a final time  

perhaps this king will preside over my wake,
lapping at the feast of flies

one in a hundred million
swimmers reaches the egg,
seeds fare only little better it seems,
save one which landed in just the right warm cow droppings
in my pasture, took root, fought its way through two wars,
too many dread droughts to count, a fire
that took a third my herd and a hired hand,
the passing of my wife, and some numbered portion
of my life

under a harvest moon, black armed and brittle,
it still stands, stardust reincarnated times infinity
more than once I took axe to field, but
its execution was always stayed

now the tool's too heavy to swing; the blade blunted by time
and this night, I can see the tree's shifting shadows on silver ground, receding silently in lunar light, preparing for a dawn it will greet, with or without me

fishing the river is for old men,
solitary figures who saw their original sin
and now see darkness closing in

for old men, who watch
the leaves pass on soft singing waters
to them, it matters not if they make it to the black sea,
tarry a while on a quiet bank,
or sink into the silt

for old men, who dream while awake
whose eyes no longer flutter but squint
in the sun’s naked white journey
from shore to shore

when their line becomes taut, they know now
a slow dance will ensue, not a battle in a war
they once felt compelled to fight--raging, raging against the night,

for the fish and fisherman know,
when the conversation ends, the line
will again be loose, drifting on currents,
bound for the certainty
of uncertainty

fishing the river is for old men
I am haunted by waters

** I am haunted by waters is the last line from Norman Maclean's story, A River Runs Through It, and the movie of the same title.

I wanna have lunch with Poe,
at Burger King,

because I'm sure he would appreciate how ghoulish that King in their commercial is

I don't want him to recite verse
while we fill our medium cups with corn syrup nectar--a giant leap
down from laudanum

I do want to ask about the Cask of Amontillado and being walled in slowly, for eternity

for to me that is creepier than all the crimson cream in the Masque of the Red Death

I want to know if he likes the fries--will he dare to dip them in scarlet paste we call catsup

mostly I want to know if he remembers the alley where he was found,

not yet a legend, consumed by consumption and delirium in equal measure

and if there were rodents privileged to hear his last whispered words--or even a gasp

I am buying, Ed, so grab that Whopper with both bony paws and tell me terrible tales, evermore