page 50

buffalo bill codeine

galloped across the brain
on a white charger
yellow hair billowing
behind in streamers
of frenzied purpose:
his mission to make the
plains safe for grass

they laughed at his haircut
but he had the last laugh:
from a hundred yards
he could shoot through
the black heart of the ace
of spades or the liquid
brown eye of a grazing bison

like silver bullets his flashing
hooves would leap over synapses
and throb down the mountainside
the drumming echoing in the canyons

the huge shaggy heads would shake
and shiver with fear and anger
but he'd describe perfect circles with his
ten gallon hat of whitest white and whoop
in such a softly dying cadence

all the shaggy heads would
lie down on the grass
and gently die

page 51

setting the tree on fire

a small matter to bring
such huge appliances
screaming in a profusion
of red and black and silver

a matter of plucking the
flame-red apricots of the
future from a sky suddenly
black with smoke and
filled with red sparks

Willy was a bastard
he gave vicious horsebites
he gave Chinese burns
he moved from his hips

but he lost it when he slipped
on the asphalt grazed his knee
and burst into tears
fifteen years
and his running snot was
as white as humiliation

as white as the cocksfoot
grass that covered the hill
so he tried to get it back
with Capstan Cigarettes
and Beehive Safety Matches

whitewood with brown
heads the yellow apricot
blossom dreaming above
and he lay back in the dry
white grass of the orchard