Old Flames V: Dog Statues

I remember the dog statues at the wavy house at the end of the block. It was the summer I discovered the skin of the country. It was Great America on the speakers. The soldiers always came home and got jobs. Some became artists, clueless knives and all. The books were buried. This was the new white burn. It's just one lost love after another.

So this is the tonic water we taste on our tongues. This is the heartache. This is the crassness. This is how I got through the war of it all. So bury this axe tonight in the skin of the door, all with wood from crosses never carried to the holy ground. Yay, yay, the priests will say, but we'll really know just who would toke a quiet huff in the diamond snuff. And so it became the last letter of broken words, severed at the gut. Mankind, why won't we hear us out?

Just because, that will be the empty chant that'll come back, tar and feathers and all, and we won't fall, we won't even crawl, no matter how lonely we get. Savor the smoke, as we drag through the ashes looking for the keys to Heaven.

This masterpiece is too much to ground, so please serve this to the troops. We have one too many authors writing haikus. Get them on the tombstone to save the canvases for tents. Shall we not die out here, away from city kings, away from poisoned church wells, buried hatchet ivies, more failed graces and dead lovers. Move on, move on, please.

Too many comedians swinging from the balcony, too many loons try to stage for free, and we mostly just let the whos and whats figure it all out. Why can't we play God's grand dice game? What are we, poisoned rats? Awash us, awash us, anoint us harrowed princess and garden graveyard of fairies. This was not the end we played so well. Dig it up, dig it up, we have alibis and grudges to deal like the devil's last poker game. Swear it to live, kid o' gray street almighty. Swear it to all graves here.

Surrender, surrender, I never met our maker. We were us and this was that. We just wanted to call it a wrap. Let's do grand here and now, merry roasters and boasters of drink, here we sleep in one rambling house for a tremendous dream. Sleep well, sleep well, sleep in one grace of now.