The Valley

Sickle moon cockeye on the valley.

Bubbling pots, sweating sweet mists.

Rosy boy poised proudly for dinner.

Sunset hobo shuffles in for a piece.

Mother smoking offers hobo a morsel.

Who glares past shoulders and belches.

Screaming he is trailed by a firefly,

to the sheriffs house where he retches.

The whiskey sheriff fondles with his Browning.

Clocks the fear in hobos stained pants.

Rides the fence to the infested bordello.

Grabs eight men who wont take a chance.

*

In outer dark the mother is swooning,

at gruff, goading voices in shadows

Her little home living in a calico sack.

Singing ‘’Dixie’  high up in the meadows.

Half-light perched  she’s in a Cypress tree.

Where she lights a long, loose liquorice cigarillo.

'They'll never kiss me in a century of summers.

Gonna feed on him right down to the marrow.'

*

The sky was metal blue when they found her.

Spitting fingernails at a branch impaled skull.

Ten men electrified beyond violence,

to a phalanx infested thrill.

The dawn chorus sliced her bleeding heart out.

Sunset hobo swallowed her ring.

And the sheriff buried Rosy boys carcass.

While distracting himself with a song.