whiskey sonnet #729 a gift from the French

give me your tired, your poor,
your huddled paper sack scoundrels
you bridge dwelling recluse
your refuse, your rabble
billiard hall hustlers
and pimps on the gamble
on snooker and nine ball
on whores sold like cattle
give me your lepers, your leeches
your treasonous bastards
the wicked the cruel
the flask of the masses
your poets and travelers
of hell in a basket
give me
one finger
two finger
THREE FINGER
FOUR!
LEAVE MY WHISKEY MY PEOPLE MY TORCH!

i was a boy once, on a few acre farm in eastern oregon. with a horse, some pigs, chickens, cattle and some shit for stepping in. just off the front porch.

moving pipe. river fed.

oil the bailer, the rake, and watch the hay dry. turn it, don't let it mildew or mold.

i wanted to play basketball. a fool. i was. my grandfather fed me

the cow hung. the sow hung, head shot, gutted and blooded.

on my basketball court. "how high is it hung?"

i ran down the gravel road to home and thumbed the alphabet in the encyclopedia.

10ft.

ran back to grampa.

rock floors and barn doors

tell me brother, now? can you feel them?
with your mornings sooner
praying for death, from dawn
the rent not controlled by your lords
but a distant mystics throes
in your open hand small pebbles and stones
reward or wage salvaged from soiled bones
and moments bask at the glory
your labors wage for the week
until the magpies and merchants
and their feathery speech
leave your palm empty
with no stones to eat

tell me brother, now? can you hear them?
these fat, raucous foul
fat laughing, cawing nasty birds
come with me brother
before they pick us clean
let us boil and pluck, grow fat on
their meat
and only be sated when
their bones pick our teeth
and when we emerge, not fat
birds we'll be, but men
of heaven and earth
mountain and street

el dorado

Steal their souls for dollars, euros, and pesos, the tourist bathe in the praise, their day in the sun.
All day walking and laying on the beach to get the shot, the angle, the moment, for some uppity brat to complain of her weight and walk away. Sand in the hair, and the legs ache, two more kilometers to the road and the dangers of the freeway, and the bus ride home.

Dinner ready and waiting, a tired body only hanging on the hook of a tired smile. Things placed, belly full of last wine and pasta. Cool concrete floors on the soles.

A day in the day.