throw pebbles at the birdclaw hand of a beggar, come gather around the courtyard, watch him choke. and you thought the morning would be better. when the fog that clouds our vision's laced with acid, and the banker's pulled his trigger, says he's broke. and you doubt the truth of the weather. when the rain upon our temples has no temper, and the voices in the steeples aren't themselves. and you want what others have rejected. though your crazed unholy landscape's grown thinner, and the tiger crouched in your thicket wears no bells. and you recall what others have forgotten. the strange and secret dealings of a neighborhood, the disenchanting models of adulthood. and you waste what others seek to nurture. the pink rose scent of life inside a window, a piece of sad advice plucked from a county flood. and you face what others turn away from. the bubonic face of death in close quarters, the skeletal breath of livestock lost in darkness.
and the afterbirth of our condescension is your place of hiding when you are on your back, is your cost of living and we must pay you back.
(c)2004