Never in the night
When the knot grows tighter
than fingers can untie,
and all the last half-damned
rivers have gone dry
does the co*k crow thrice
until someone is denied...
or the morning comes.
And you wonder, will you
get your sh** together?
And what is that?
A leather sofa and a feather in an old fur hat?
A fake tat' lost in a
box of cracker jacks?
Practicing your plane wreck
face in the first-cla** lav'?
That's what the ghost of someone's dad might say.
And when they come calling
I won't go calm.
There is no palm or divine mitt
with which to hold one's pit,
or separate the human race
from its environment.
No scattered ashes loosely gather
asking where the fire went. No.
We're left with half-true psalms
in an indecipherable scrawl,
in some vague extinct language,
ancient ink dull, almost vanished
on some old brittle scroll.
That's what the ghost of
someone's dad might say.