Seven Foot Sickle Bar Mower

Lifeless on a patch of Wear farm swallowed
up by time marked in jimson and honey vine
milkweed to the eyes of a city boy, worse
a northerner, shoeless, shirtless, tanned but

for pale omegas of a low tide flat top wreathing my ears
white shading to blue at the temples, prayerful snakes
sleep late coiled around clutches of my nightmares.  

Oil can like the oil can that lubricated the Tin Man
brandished jail break file in the other hand
grandpa circled the scorpion striking at the lethal tail
silvering edges of serrated teeth, eyes shadowed

by the brim of his pith helmet, liquoring bushings
gone dry in the heat while I sat watching
from the open palm of the Ford NAA Jubilee tractor seat

bearing witness to the honing of blades against high grass
bearding the branch, touching but not touching
my father’s face swimming naked in the quarry
pond of grandpa in profile, angled low above

the linkage mechanism, steel on steel, shadow
against light, my hand rolling fine red clay dust
into thin snakes against my smooth cheek.

what you leave when you’ve left (mending the tormenting silence^)
 ———————————————————-—————————-


your words rock me, like an old time preacher,
mending, begetting, tormenting,
fire and brimstone you sinner,
if I don’t quit this life of loving words, saloon music,
guitar picking in low down dives,
liquoring and sinning,
choosing to choose poorly,
never and always thinking about the songs
you’ve left behind unplayed, pained

got the sun and the rain and all afternoon,
to contemplating leavings,
the crumbs you let drop,
the missteps took and missed,
drank too much, hurt too hard,
the silence of my history, it’s renting,
unrelenting, tormenting, lamenting and such,
those loves, labors that don’t amounted much,
a slow rush to fall, to count it all

you say, always time to mend what life
has rent, if you spend the time thinking,
‘bout what you gained, what you lost,
the net of both added and subtracted,
what you got, what you gave,
the sum of your begat,
a life’s story, to tell,
of life’s misgiving, unforced errors, and
crimes committed only you know

not sure what the total bill due gonna be,
combining the costs of the here,
the now, what was and wasn’t,
what was said, not believing but yet singing,
so when the check comes,
the summation of your life’s calculations,
get to add on a tip, a good-as-gold saying
it’s time that can mend, but knowing the true costs of time,
maybe, maybe not...

<§>
                         let  them reap what you have sown,
                    for the great designer will surely inquire
       what everybody knows is the forecast standard to be met,
     it is not what, how much you got, but what you begat, when,
                                              you’ve left