What
With each day
Returning
Dis-remembering
Coming on streets
You shall never
Thank God
Find again
With fewer words
You speak & write
You travel more
Your Muse frets
Dis-believing
In a market place
Man squats
Bites off throats of chickens
“Bite & spit”
Back & forth
Spits out misery
In the dust
Birdfeed grits on concrete
Spit & bite & spit
So it goes
Man making a living
Good at it
Like a desk clerk
Is discreet;
Now then the chickens
Well out of misery
Too are nodding off
en masse
No flesh wounds
Little that meets the eye
A bloodbath
It ain’t
& if a heap
Of bodies, some square dozen
Not all stamped out
Thighs thigh-high
Shall spell “massacre”
On your retina
Move on
“Nothing to see”
Move along
Disperse!
The mess of wings
In the body-warmth dark
A reconfiguration
Of many as one
A mandala
Of syringes
Some half-hearted flutter
Twitches confined to the fringe
Die
Die down
Willing the drug to work
The man nods
Gives you a nod
Lifting one eyebrow like a chicken
Drawing you
To the matter at hand
Desk job
On whose lap
What must be the most secret book
You will never ever read again
In the penumbra
All the gilt-edged pages rippled
Fell open, shimmering
Alive
The man wears a chicken’s expression
A chicken’s stupefaction
You
If you are not saved by what you see
In the market today
With just the clothes you are seen in
C’mon darkness my old friend
Where in the world
Would you also go
live
& write & live?