after Merle Haggard
“I turned twenty-one in prison
doin’ life without parole.”
Strange. Stranger.
Not Camus, though parallel
Arrested
action. In any case, a bust with
convention
Which
ends
a head on the
block.
Nothing
the French invented.
Workin’
man blues, & so on. On the prowl.
Nose for
news, & so on. Also on the prowl.
All so
loosely translated, begins:
In the beginning was the word
Defines:
“…actual linguistic behaviour or
performance of individuals
in contrast to the linguistic system of a
community…”
Outlaw
existential
Ism
Momma
barely dead & buried
Sparks a
reefer, drinks a café au lait, goes for a swim
Fondles
the butt’ry thighs of a moist young gal in the back row
of a darkened movie theatre
Fails to
unriddle
The
comedy of a crucifix hung like a dagger in the flick’ry light
&
what was it someone said? Reading a
translation
Is like
fucking a bride through a horse blanket?
Nay, too
rude a remark for Pablo who rarely (if ever) kissed
Down
between the stems on paper or any otherwise public
Prison.
Then?
Heaven
knows momma tried, momma tried.
Now left
to the blear and roar of ocean. Knows
(as well)
The
world is inarticulate, friend, & a recurrent car wreck.
Who
learned to drink bourbon neat, tap ashes in the beer for strength
Can only
reconfigure
If a
single bullet does the trick
What
boots this desire to plug further, except,
No
desire?
Funereal
meats coldly furnish forth the execution.
Man in
black sing:
Shot
a man in Reno, just to watch him die
Time
being out of joint axes it.
Crucifix
hung like a dagger in the flick’ry light.
He will have a collection of haiku dedicated to the late Richard Brautigan published in the spring, 2013. The poem included here is part of a collection titled “After Words” which has been recently contracted to appear in 2015.
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