Broke
down
Massy-
Furgeson,
abandoned and left
for dead somewhere out here near what
must be, more or less, the middle of an over-grown
cornfield, smack-dab on the Kansas / Missouri
border, who knows how many years ago,

upon which the scarecrow of an old cracked plaster
mannequin (with straw cowboy hat
and canvas gloves) is
casually
straddled,

as
if
he
were
kickin’
way back and
rolling: wide, low and
slow, down the boulevard of time,

like he aint got a motherfuckin’ care in the world,

and with there nothing else to do and nowhere
else to be, who knows, maybe he doesn’t.

The
night,
wearing
its long, dark
flowing cape is just
now making its grand entrance as
it slowly descends the curved staircase of the sky while
a few stars have showed up early and the wind
is rushing all about, and of course Night
isn’t really Night without its award winning sound-
track of the lush, polyphonic
harmonization
of crickets,
tree frogs
and
ghosts.

So
far,
things have
turned out a
little differently
than I thought they would: no real, huge
complaints (I’ve been weirdly lucky, I guess), probably
the usual – less than I hoped for / more than
I cared for – maybe a little bit more
of what some guys get and a lot less of what gets left
behind when they’re done picking through
the choicest cuts, but
hey, we’re not
here to
get
down
in
the
mud of
covetous-
ness and resentment
or stir up any trouble that
doesn’t need stirring, so let’s just take stock in what we
have, count our blessings, be thankful and all that
crap and get back to work, people

There is a big, blue
heron perched on the rusty
tin roof of an old

boat dock (that’s barely
even afloat these days), just
off the shore of one

of the few bodies
of water in the state of
Kansas not built by

the United States
Army Corps. of Engineers
way, way back in the

hazy fog bank of
long ago, not unlike the
thick, milky gray mist

here, this cool morning,
in which a few vague shapes are
faintly visible,

the boat dock and blue
heron being first and fore-
most, obviously.

Oh, the poor, poor moon,
trying, so frantically, to
remember, after

a night of drinking
and dancing on tabletops,
where, oh, where he could

have left the sack of
flour he was sent by Old
Mother Night to the

market to buy and
bring straight back home she had said,
again and again,

and to stay away,
especially, from those bad
places where wicked

people imbibe of
rum and play at games of chance
all the night and day.