Prov 28:1

Wake up in the hotel black and you know the crowd is staring, fat bulk of lenses in the ceiling light and a dark mass on the side table.  Nice work, you chuckle, you found me.  Reach slow for reading glasses and touch someone else's alarm clock.  I left it behind now eight years but payment comes due, four lines at a time, in the dark, O king, let me tell a story.

Crying On The Inside

We were so close he could touch you. I never did like clowns but you go for the kids and we had the best seats up front even though it cost more than I had thought. Stupid to be scared anyway but son i said like the old joke it's not the clown you see that gets you. Halfway through the act he turns to me and gives me a big ole wink, slow like I know you inside, and I knew our time was nearly gone.

Grandfathered In

You cannot operate a god damned slaughterhouse in the historic district!  But here's this poor little guy, bad teeth, leather coat, stinks like violets.  Stands up straight, near on to tears, ready with the whole speech.  History and death, kosher and halal, centuries paid for, steel and consecration and redemption and god knows but finally forget it, I say, this town you want a variance you don't miss the deadline, without rules we're just animals.

Pretty Sunset

The joke when he told when he told the joke was on me. You know when he passed on his friend-a-friend cough it already been the wards at State and by time it wrapped around my town it was old news. They lay down the streets like schools at nap time. We sat the last light and smoked unfiltered ate pastries and left fifteen dollars for no body.

Give and Take

"Come forth" he says, and coughs, and a million wet leaves leap out of the lawn.  Around the oak and up, coming home to tips of branches, and green into place there with soft pops, whispering a second spring.   I say, someone has to die now, don't they, with dust in my throat.    Entropy's a bitch, he says, but I can tell for once his mind is elsewhere. 

It Wasn't Me

Imagine the precipice, sixty meters straight down red rock to canyon river, and on the edge, two tufts of grey grass, and a kitten, sleeping.  Soft as you approach, not soft,  scuff in gravel and kitten startles, jumps back into air, claws, falling, gone.  You did it, gentle reader.  You killed the kitten.

Please take off your shoes

"I can't take a golem through security.  You know that as well as I."   It didn't make it easier but it had to be said -- deference to the law runs deep in the clay.  Took him apart, piece by piece,  soft under my fingernails, dug out the scroll, tried not to meet his eyes, the last to go, pale blue and resigned to submission. 

Have it your way

I could walk in any store any day any where in the world and get the same meat sandwich and fried potatoes, I said, staring at silent blue sky.  It cost less than I made in ten minutes hard at work.   My great- grandson's eyes fixed on me, hungry, wanting to believe, and my stomach was full of guilt.   

Credo in un Dio crudel

She put the best face on it, but we both saw it fast.   One way out and three to go,  white eyes and comic noise, stage lights sharp on the steel.   A pool, like a sigh, spreading, and it turns just like it had to.  Your turn.

Bridge Failure

I didn't mean to do it but then I had to press on uptown.    Over the bear was under and then in the river, floating.  Clarke wailed but angry to himself cause he could of been next and he knew it.  Staring straight and walking fast, I couldn't catch up.   Next time you hold on to what you got.

Sunny Side Up

If there was something you were missing,  whyn't you go get it?  he said, and poked at his eggs.   I didn't have an answer then but later I knew what he should have said.    If it hadn't been so long, I said, I might have, think you know everything.   That's the problem with breakfast.   No clarity but you know what's next.

Found It

I put down the axe and started walking. Anywhere seemed good. On the road, off the road, peepers all around and wet socks. Walked until I couldn't see stars and figured good enough. I left it behind but I knew it was waiting for me here somewhere. Oh. Right there.

For No One

He took my copy of The Fountainhead and took it apart, page by page, and threw it off the roof. It made a cloud that made the sun flutter. In the woods there was nobody to see it but it was undone before belief. The cover went up the rainspout and there was Toohey underfoot. I cried but in me there was secret raw joy.

Roar of the Crowd

Most of all I miss the clowns. My old face is about where it ends now, but before, they were thick like flies. The last ones were the saddest. We took them out back where the light was just so and it was showtime.

Trailways

With my head against the window it's dark enough. Outside it's Alabama again but inside it's waiting to be Georgia and then some. They'll say I had no choice. Ten minutes, ten minutes Decatur. I'm not getting off I seen it plenty of times.

Quiet Zone

The police made me leave the hospital. I thought you could stay as long as you wanted but no. Hold up hold on he said your door is open. My scarf was in the mud but there was nothing holding me back.

Going down in no hurry

It always begins, he said, with the best intentions. We nodded, and kept feeding the rope overboard. The moon lapped at the waves, hunger above and below. Kerosene smell, warm air in cold. Astern, awash, alight.

Dry under the elms

We knew that it wasn't a good idea. But by the time everything was finished, nobody could tell. A few handfuls of leaves, a sprinkling of soil. Three photographs to cover the jersey. The smell of rain coming. Home by dinner.