THE AGING CHICKEN

GENTLENESS comes to me too easily now,
fingers curling more easily around glass
than coiling into fist to smash the ass,
the loud, lout-mouthed loon leaning into me
where I sit to sip and slip into wish-keyed
whiskey-whimsy and a days-long daze-bound haze.


The bulge-bellied boor-bore of the beer brood stays.
When he says, "I've been thinkin'," I shudder.
I know what follows will not be thought, but bilge,
brewed-brain belches and bubbles of Bud Light piss.
Gone the days of the jack-hammer pulse, the fist-kiss;
so I hear the jock-jerk yack off. Bile burns,
but now mere flutter of heart makes mind cry, "Hold."


Mind kills. The brute foot kicks but mind shapes the boot.
GENIUSES DESIGN THE RIFLES THAT MORONS SHOOT.
Farewell, days when a nudge could have me jailed.
Osteocowardice twists into rictus
yesterday's spit, spite, and sneer. So, I sing,
sink the stink in silly song, soothe the sting
with "Roll out the barrel," or "Onward, Christian soldiers."
"You're nuts!" he shouts, freeing me by fleeing.
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