Dogs of Habit Die Hard

all the kids in brown sightless water
feeling in the mud with their toes
a bloated cow floats down the rio dulce just over there
it's a good haul in the catita traps today
a foot gets cut on glass and heals


nothing is clean around here, what's left
like cigarette ash in every lukewarm beer
the sun chips away at fresh coats of paint
the wind scratched up our goggles long ago
we stumble through each day like beetles in a cave


we have always been
nothing new under any sun
the nictomorphic lens mist-meniscus
spinnerets from which all depends
watching spirits leave bodies like puppets gone slack
this nightmare never ends
every revolution's just a new when


the agony of absence like
floating far from any shore
just an albatross above
sunlit pinion shadows like fingers
caress battered jetsam heart


The bleakness it creeps up on us and now we go to snooze.
Leastaways this is still better than drownin' ourself in booze,
but it sucks when you feel like half your life is spent buried neath strangled death-rattles of infant kitten cut-off half-mews...
spose thats why others seek solace in church pews.
still we'd rather be desolate and miserable than besotted or bemused