Mustering What’s Left – Selected & New Poems – 1976-2017

Mustering What’s Left

Abracadabra & away we go into the maelstrom into the flood into the maw of the goat-of-war where bleeders roam the pastures hunting a way out & a way to believe & a way to the wayside where Uncle Charley waits in his Green Hornet disguise & Aunt What’s-Her-Name snaps-up snakes for dinner & never says No to a passing grunt her being a patriot doncha know & here the wheel turns & the whistle blows & Joe with a missing leg & Artie with a missing arm toss the dice to see who goes first & around the bend with shattered knees comes the Black Reaper on his hefty Hog with all those furry fox tails & a blond fox too stroking his neck & whispering in his one good ear & here we go again down the shoot to the end of the street where the whittlers whittle & the shufflers shuffle & buttered rum is the drink of choice & chess is for keeps & here’s Buddy with his perpetual grin ginning-up another cockeyed ruse for fun & games & burning the candle at both ends one in his ear & the other up his ass & away we ride to the show of shows & one for one & one for all & no one the wiser & no one to blame. It is what it is . . . doncha know.

From the section “New Poems”

1. You Sent Me To Kill Or Be Killed
2. Visitation
3. Mustering What’s Left
4. Sordid Sequences # 2
5. Sordid Sequences # 3