Angels

Angels.

Angels

Don’t poke him with a stick,

nor deny his sister.

photo by hungrybison

 

Beware those beyond the woods,
don’t go near them,
they will dump you into the mud by the river’s edge,
they will return to scatter your bones,
they’re angels.

Darken your homes,
mark your thresholds
with a wide brush,
He’s coming.

Colby, Kansas

The night is vacant

photo by hungrybison

No moon glint on hardened tear
No thought to the void

Crazy-assed old man
Walking on the earth leaking
An empty beer can

Remington 12 gauge
The dilapidated barn
A hole blown straight through

Long, deep and jagged
Torn, stained clothes in plastic bags
The starving dog eats

Lost, Colby Kansas
A “Spanish omelet” with toast
consciousness at last

Paradise Down Stream

The sky was once full,

photo by hungrybison

As above, so was below
Emptied by gunfire.

Endless brown black herds
The plains thundered beneath them
Their breath filled the air

Freed from frozen mud
the rivers carried the dead
Paradise down stream

Swing in silent breeze
The broken gates of Eden
On rusted hinges

Skeletal remains
In grey wood and broken glass
Snakes’ lairs and rats’ nests

Once cacophonous

Where hoof and horn did reign

Stillness in the grass

Nebraska

 

photo by hungrybison

In the cool dampness,

below the house,
the kids rest in silence.

The grownups are huddled together,
in the grip of fear,
with crooked faces,
and vomit in the back of their throats.

They’ve done this before.

Flash lights and batteries,
canned meat,
a bucket for piss.

A dog barks at the reinforced door.

The twisters are coming

Peyote

Peyote,

Photo by Hungrybison

my oasis in the desert,

intense,

beautiful, wild,

sometimes disturbing.

Extreme euphoric, spiritual,

and bringer of clarity.

 

Sit with me on the prairie, amongst the emptiness.

I want to ask you,

what is the taste of red?

Why does your brother have a black aura?

Jesus,

Your heart is ice cold.

You have beautiful eyes,

and you are cute,

but you are obviously an elitist.

Go fuck yourself.

You are hardly an “observer”,

any notion you may have of being one is imagined.

This is now part of you.

You’re like the bull’s skull that floats on the breeze.

Which is better:

the short sharp burst of psychotic realisation,

or the mind numbing dullness of the everyday?

The action or the thought?

The talking about God or the talking to God?

This, where we sit was stolen,

in an era of madness.

An era of greed,

when magic became superstition,

when ritual became frivolous.

You were not part of that world,

now is your time.

Now is your time,

it is your turn,

the new gold rush.

There is a treasure you want to acquire,

no matter how much you destroy it or extinguish its value.

Look! There’s a goddamn thunderstorm under those rocks,

under this earth are a thousand angry souls,

waiting for their time.

The skin on my hands is starting to look like the bark,

of an old knurled cottonwood.

There are stars in the green liquid,

and the haloes of angles circling within the cries of the coyote.

This is America

Behind the wheel,

Photo by Hungrybison

With a gut full of beer, and twenty bucks to my fuckin’ name.

A Vietnamese whore,
Sits beside me.
Illuminated, just barely, by the yellow hue of the passing streetlights.
I push my gun between my legs,
I’m on the ready, on the ready.

Tension knots my neck.
My testicles ache, one too many kicks from drunks in cowboy boots.

My body aches from one too many beatings.

I’m searching the dusty dim lit streets,
of the “New West”,
For some action,
For some release.
For some head to smash in with a brick.
For some nameless, faceless Mexican to leave bloodied in the dirt.
Someone, no one will notice,
Someone, no one will care about, someone.

The air is heavy and hot.
My body is covered in a thin layer of sweat.
The whore gazes, half drunk,
Out of the open window
Seeking, seeking, seeking something,
In the shadows on the barren sidewalks,
In the shadows of darkened storefronts, something
Among the boarded up windows of restaurants, movie theaters and motels.
In the emptiness of the vacant car yard and the abandoned factory.
She keeps seeking.

I’m gonna fucking lose it.
I’m gonna fuck her up.
I’m gonna get my money’s worth.

I’m cursed by being born in this desert town, this shithole.
Cursed by having been sent to another desert, another shithole,
to kill.
Cursed with a fucking memory,
Cursed by the tradition of motherfuckin’ Semper Fi .
I’m cursed to be this, this… this is America

Dakota

photo by hungrybison

The sky is full of anger, thick, dark as clotted blood.

Evil manifested into wind;

I am helpless against the rage.

From the prairies of Canada comes

a man killer .

Death awaits , for me, in Dakota.

The Death of the Dove

There will be others,

photo by hungrybison

names on napkins and paper flowers,

men in the darkness.

I shall love you through violence.

In the room,

there was another,

from fire came fire.

Regret for the fate of the dove

in a ruffled dirty bed

she sleeps, a bullet in her neck.

John Wesley Hardin

photo by hungrybison

John Wesley Hardin,

was a son of a bitch.