Valley Story

Sickle moon hangs cockeye over the valley.
Bubbling pots, sweating out sweet mists.
The rosy boy poised proudly for dinner.
As sunset hobo shuffles in for his piece.

Mother smoking offers hobo a morsel.
Who glares past razor 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 the hobos stained pants.
Rides the fence to the infested breathed bordello.
Grabs eight men who wont take a chance.

*

In outer dark the mother is smaning.
At gruff, goading voices in shadows
Her whole little world in a calico sack.
Slithering triumphantly through the meadows.

Half-light perched in a Cypress tree.
She lights a long, loose liquorice cigarillo.
'They'll never find me in a century of summers.
Gonna feed 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.