Does this pen still write without me? One can hope.
There are buried stories worrying away:
On the forest edge a wolf pack chews a rank rope
that frays like rotting morays. Aspens sway.

It’s a Rocky Mountain Trinidad or conversely
a Caribbean peak beneath the sea
where fish and fauna interchange perversely
in the faux persona I imagine’s me.

Were the music other, would I order cava
and cavort with phantoms only I can see?
A Turkish ballad scars the redneck badlands
in the Smith and Wesson wasteland I call Mind:
When I mainline sugar my eyes conjure a Jesus
who drains the fountain that De Soto sought.

Norwegians drink at home from six till midnight
then go out dancing, singing, fighting Loki
for a last dance with Valkyries who will pay
for their twenty-bucks-a-bottle barroom beer.