Cool Water Springs Bank Hold Up

25 pesos to the name of Don Garcia,
A fortune cum and come again,
running whores in Hondo.

More than the pesos in his pocket,
are the notches on his belt.
Ivory like buttermilk, and curlicue engravings,
drawn in steel by the finest smith.

Senor's sombrero, a felted wool of brushed bobcat,
& Hernan Cortes de Monroy y Pizarro,
A roan of the mildest temperance,
lead Don Garcia to safety, swiftly, that day.

All of this amounts to the sum total of,
3 Dead in The Cool Water Springs Bank Hold Up.

The Small Provincial Embassy, A Country Long Past

Dans la menagerie,
Tea stained lace tablecloths
Hang on a line to dry,
As if all is to be boarded up,

All the formalities seem dried,
Much like the wash basins in the sunny courtyard,
That not four hours hence,
Held soaps,
bleaches
And lyes,

That, evidently,
has done nothing to decrease the tea stains,
On the fine French lace,
Here in the small provincial embassy.

A Morning Funeral

The walls stink of his reverence,
No one made a sound, only silence,
His throne lay at one end of the hexagonal hallway,
And his chair stood opposite on tetrahedral tiles,
The chair was for Fridays and Sundays,
And always before work,
It creaked, and would strain under the action of his sitting,
He thought it his throne,
And the leather surface to which he sat knew the feel of his seat.
He is no longer alive to use his chair,
as you can tell by the black banners of mourning,
But his reverent stink still clings to his red banners in the morning.

Apocolypse Row

Cat's wailing in the junksick morning,
The church bell tolls out a warning,
To the sinners and the saints,
The sinners should show restraint,
And the saints don't be late.

The streets crumble into fire coloured water,
But the watercoloured fire is used only to heat Bunsen burners,
Why is it not used to burn Bunson, or Larsen, or Hansen?
Who are falling into shrift rifts with arms full of gifts,
For the swift and fleetfooted, bejeweled and fooled,
Taught and fraught with viscous opiate mucous,
Running from jowls of marble, or of satin or woven latin patterns.

The junksick and the sick of junk,
Form a team so they don't sink,
The junksick want to languish in a state of suspension,
And the sick of junk want to see what it's like at the surface again.
If only they knew that in the fire coloured water is a reality of pain,
And the watercoloured fire stains.

The Junipers

The loose-lipped cousins
of twelve neighbours
sunning themselves,
claw with vocal chords
straining, in vibrato
just for a chance
to all speak
of nothing
in glorious
and harmonious
dins of unison.
And the words,
all twelve layers
of strata,
nothing of value,
only utterances of,
events, and new dresses,
infatuations (most fleeting),
the weather, and
lusty romance novels,
broadcast in Duodecim,
trail like ribbons
over the junipers.

Stock Market Crash ? a.d.

densely congregated people
narrowly abated evil,
soft and fallow lay the
shallow grey and hallow may
night, dark and dim lit,
in crescent moons stark light flits
and bends motionless, but rapid
on the faces of vapid star weary
travellers with baggage of days in
railcars too full and
ticket takers too few
sweat tinged,
smokefilled
folds gathered of fragrant wet wool,
dirty floor
scuffed and tracked with hard soled shoes,
coming from,
and to,
houses and parlours,
alleys and antechambers,
churchs and den's of inquity revolving stagnant in sordid drug trade.
opium stains on trouser's made
in Depression era craftmanship,
with threadbare patches, and almost all burnt up, be our matches.
--

The King Of Dullards

All the great thinkers
of the last hundred years
all sigh and fall into
a heap thirty three feet high.
Every idea,
question,
answer,
equation,
conjuration,
and happenstance discovery,
all float away,
lost to the aether,
all anchors come unfettered.

All waste remains
and a champion of idiots, of dunces, of buffoons,
a King of Dullards is crowned.
His mansion is empty,
save three rusty spoons,
a bristle-less toothbrush,
and the Z volume of the Encyclopedia Britannica.