TRIED AND TRUANCY

my cardiologist got stock in McDonald's 
and he's shooting at God to start the race
his starter pistol aimed at the heavy ashes 
that fill my big brother's urn
on a mantle that is now safely 
far enough from the mills smokestack
the tower that glows in blackness 
and fills the grey nights sky 
above a river that just keeps on rushin' by 
the young man's eyes grew cat-like 
in the dark, he felt his way to the back door 
and into a sort of teenage oblivion 
from then on I knew 
through cuts from paper letters, 
sweat and his headboard knockin',
his life was ripe with an abundance 
his and her own kind of love 
their subjects pinned to a mattress,
where they gave their own alchemy 
to a single moment 
to live inside forever 
or for no time at all
his hips and her ankles 
dangled in front of God 
like a winning lottery ticket
the thrust and a knock on the wall 
where a portrait of their innocence falls
in slow motion it twirls to the linoleum 
enough to spin my prying head 
like a hurricane in the Gravitron
with boyish wonder and excitement 
tongue dangling from my jowls 
ear cupped to the wall 
he often fed his appetite for mayhem 
in the days when I let mine starve,
then he dragged me to the waters of carnage
and ducked my head
to fill my lungs 

we all rode in a long black Cadillac 
that followed behind a hearse
I was filled with regret 
for all the times I'd said
"God, I wish I was dead..."
or for how I wished it was easier 
for him to read,
than it was for me to sing
long as I know I gotta 
seat in the kingdom 

I almost coulda had him,
but he slipped through my hands 
the willow bent, the river drained 
and he slipped through my hands 
again 







cover image: "Cain smiting Abel with God's Expulsion of Cain from the Garden of Eden"(1716) by Sebastiano Ricci