An easy path to follow, a hard path to get off of

Who could walk in your shoes
when your laces are barbed wire
and your soles leave tank tracks
which respect neither
street nor flower bed
to get to
where you
think you are needed?

No one wearing baggy clothes
dares
stand next to you
because you smoke
and wave your arms as you speak
your burning desires
for more fire escapes
in buildings
who's wood floors
have cigarette scars.

"I'd like to take
a wrecking ball
and a flame thrower
to this place"
is what you said
the last time
we sat at the same table in a public place,
"all these snoots
with their toy dogs
and ransom note sobriety,
they can fall
where the stand
and attract vultures.
I'm a nice guy.
Fuck everyone else."

A week later
Merle asked me
where she could find you.
I said
look for a destroyed
piece of public property
and then follow the trail.

if bullets could talk

if bullets could talk
there would be more speeches
and no applause

for tipping your hat
to the customer
who gave
your first bottom dollar.

There are no more clouds

There are no more clouds
on the other side of the pillow,
but it did rain
minor cures for big feet
in the shower stall
and there are Navy boats
shaped like shoes
scraping the sheets the river bed,
gunned up and baffled by drought
and cracked earth
and all that science bullshit
that says
you'll not have a happy day
until the grass
dies around your neck
and squeezes you until
your eyes
light up the street