one bought brass for shaving pencils, and orange paper;
painful to be in silence were those days desert
wore cotton gloves and kevlar lids and green woollen socks
the ever-blare of the aux
them glo plugs in the grottos
to men who fly fancy free
this is no way to live
amid knife-fights, gun-fights
the rounds chambered & guns pocketed with flasks
there were other little men
of crossed arms and crossed wills
and canoes not for the sailing
from the cliffs one slid,
rope-down,
into the grottos of one’s life
the cast adrift
those who would follow is kill them
was the rare moment
one blew not apart
and this dog knows one’s soul sits well away
to starve the whale of krill
urge the dolphin decide
the skin grafts, the shot-to-death seraphs
it spans continents
were the sickening of swallows
and forty-thousand ever miles