The Light Militia of the Lower Sky
Suspend all belief for a moment, while we
repair our ship. You see, something bent
when we entered your atmosphere
and before we can depart we must hammer
it back into flightworthy shape. Do you
understand what I am relating to you?
But I get tired after a night of poker
with donkeys like Wally Cally and even
black coffee cannot replenish my
creative flow—call it what it is.
I feel compelled to say more about
the ship and so on, but I’ve lost the thread.
When all is said and done something
will exist that did not exist when
Wally Cally was calling me down
to the river with junk and hitting
his flush or straight and stacking me.
Trying to exorcise a resonating bad
beat requires the magic of Max
von Sydow and Jason “Who?” Miller
who likely aren’t available at scale.
But still, I work to expose my soul
and let someone out there know I am
here suffering through my life like
almost everybody else, but lightened
in pocket and bitter at the poker
gods and all deities in general
who long ago stopped answering
their effin landline telephones.
Mimic Hooting To The Owl
I pictured the nature man, the natural man,
cupping his hand to his mouth and pursing
his lips, head lifted slightly, eyes squeezed.
There on the shield rock by water colder
than anticipated, he stands, red plaid shirt
picking up the rust red of a flushing autumn,
his red ball cap burning with connotations,
his small, furious mind buzzing even as
his body, with its raised arm and tilted head,
grows still as he fills his lungs, pausing
for a long moment before unleashing
what more approached a lunatic loon
than a call to an owl calmly watching
from a branch with unblinking yellow eyes.
And to see the owl abruptly flap its wings
and lift away in a buffeted, irked silence
made our hearts happy for some reason.
We enjoyed the natural man’s expression
of outrage edged with blazing confusion.
Later, around a roaring campfire, after
several turns of warm Wild Turkey, others
hooted mockingly at the natural man
who couldn’t understand the foundations
of their antipathy until someone snatched
his red ball cap and before he could react
tossed it with a feisty crackle into the fire.
ABOUT THE ARTIST
Salvatore Difalco writes from Toronto, Canada.
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