Manchild at the net
can’t explain
his double fault.
His lob to the baseline
was a bomb.
His sudden
smashing serve
served no one well.
In the end
he left the court
with his balls
in his pocket,
without love,
without advantage,
all ties broken.
I can’t ignore the puppet strings,
the wire that connects the wood to blood.
I can’t forget the man who sings
such lonely ballads, boots all caked in mud.
I cannot feel the empathy
with hordes who trundle daily through the street.
I cannot muster sympathy
for those who battle for the better seat.
The puppet show goes on all day.
The plot is never-ending.
The heartsung tunes just waft away,
into the blue skies wending.
The milling crowds in business shrouds
may dwindle down by night.
But, come the dark, like stormy clouds,
they’re primed for fight or flight.
No one puffed their cheeks like Dizzy.
No one’s ‘stash was quite so frizzy.
No one wore a like beret.
No one’s horn was bent that way.
Where to are you bound
if not in the ground?
The sky is the limit, they say.
You fly to a peak
and stay for a week,
then rise into heaven one day.
The dirt in the hole
will replace the soul,
the quiet still sticky with prayer.
The insects and snakes
will hold their own wakes.
You’ll rest in eternal nightmare.
Soon flowers will grow
in row upon row.
Your stone will host lichen and mold.
It’s no party town
when you’re six feet down.
There is no cure for growing old.
There is no place left
for an angry vulture.
They’re just not wanted
in our current culture.
No one appreciates
their whole routine of
flying in to pick a body clean.
They and their buzzard pals
must eat at night
and bitch about how
things now just aren’t right.
Unmeating dead men’s bones
is not so scary.
It makes them
that much easier to bury.