Altered Courses

Fat in the fall of a mast year,

wary of the mice that will follow.

You don’t want to leave too much

to the imagination.  The bigger

the moon the smaller the candle.

Every life-affirming action contains

a thousand invisible annihilations.

Who on this planet doesn’t know

the shape of a gun?  Is it a

comfort to think the other animals

don’t know they face extinction?

There’ll be fewer to name in the

language that replaces this one.

Watch the slow motion reshuffle.

When a buckaroo gets that leaving

look every mustache and veil turns

moist.  A pity there’s been a

fudge in nature’s allegory.  Put fish

on that spinach.  Point out the

verdant hillside where sheep may

safely graze.  So this is how

the stalwarts meet their end.

Caught between the consequence

and the punishment. 

Gregarious Flowering 

Think you’re uptown with those pre-

cut screens.  Secure in your own co-

herence.  Do you dance or have a dowry?

Call it camouflage but I say they’re

dressed in the materials of their surroundings.

The mandibles remain visible.  Distributing

a clean death to the unwashed masses.

The rain doesn’t need rescuing.  The waltz

finally loses its innocence.  Ample color

and vivacity in the swirl of enigmatic events.

Dirge-like throbbing betrays no terror.  You

can be like St. Anthony of Padua and preach

to the fishes.  I’ll heat up the oil.