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Leslie Philibert Sep 2015
Flywheels enamel
with heartblood,
aortal ticks hesitate

before the dull bang
of a fallen fist,
the fat knuckle

of the next hit.
Tick tick the
small ones,

the eaters of dust,
stone-eyed they
fall apart like lost time,

the weights that
regulate all
are unbalanced.
There's a few of the old crowd still meet up at Christmas and
each raise a glass to the past and good friends.

The crowd's thinning out now, but I'm thinking out loud now
it's still quite a sizeable group
(If you don't count so well )

We reminisce about that and the other and
it's this that makes the bond stronger

I suppose the longer we go on the few will become less

there are flywheels in the abattoir
and they spin to a six string guitar
the piano plays on down in Abilene to the tunes of a cowboy and his praire dream.

It's all alike or a bit the same
never knowing if one had been
sane what the outcome would have been.
Devon Brock Aug 2019
Bob Wilke
excelled at the close up
kind of magic -
that pick a card sort of thing -
great at parties,
when the chatter
is lacking
and the astonished
were a bit off-plumb
and didn't notice he ain't
practiced much.

Now Roy Dennison,
on the other hand,
would pull a maggot
from your nose
if he knew you were lying -
a fait accompli kind of thing.
He always said doves were too big,
too flighty, rabbits nibble his pockets,
and Roy, just too ******
lazy to feed 'em proper.

Emma McFadden,
oh - now
she
had
the apparatus -
that steampunk clinking thing
with exposed gears,
whirling barber poles,
horns that puked blue smoke
and methane, chain,
sawblades and springs,
flywheels and pulleys -
all the things necessary
to rip a body apart
and leave the choking crowd
gasping for more,
always wondering.

Some say they spotted her,
one or two times with a shovel
under that old scraggly sycamore
behind Dennison's place.
That may be the case or
just a bunch of flap, I don't know.
I ain't going back there, though
I do have some ideas
on the supply side
of Roy's maggots.

What a show.
Man oh man, those were the days.
What a show.
A cold caress feels skin intact:
protection altaring misgivings–
messages flown down on rails.
Cool heads prevail, endure this visit,
egged to double-burn the wax,
dishonored: chided for syntax.
They shift their tremors out of park,
engaging flywheels, sign on lines–
error that binds the river gray
to bones in titles, floating loans
to scant subscribers who to signal sync:
clique here and link to strength
in number. Textbooks waver not–
no units cover aberrations.
Shred such practice with a blade.
Hold in abeyance hit parades–
insist the linguist's hand decline
our ending: dative frosts
that stagger out from what is lost.

And through this pity plays the Modest
Grim Quartet to crowds that haven't
listened yet–presumed to rise up
faithful by the sword, but buried
under long receipts and bills
for dull retreats, hearts centered in
the sou·r stacking wrong. We wrench
a living from what's left of laters
severed, but so long.

— The End —