SIOUX CITY
errol miller
Writing a bully-word
it is a paradox
whose right to life is greater
the run of the bull, the fin of the trout
a Great Earth filled with chimpanzees
the kids using missile-proof crayons
spraying our houses for roaches
but not for armed intruders
going on the learn shorthand, but why?
a bigger future a long way off
we are all huddled together under a Cebia tree
so go star-shattering rockets overseas
and the palsied tenants to the liquor store
laughing, our stories are not pretty ones
a colony of older mammals controlling Antarctica
staring back we are infested with success
inflating our rubber balloons and dreams
never going up to the mountains
the government paying all
a brief TV message and then to bed
for nighttime tales of Chicken Little
eighteen-wheelers criss-crossing America
they can take your breath away
leaving your belly full
smoking cigarettes for smoke
a million seagulls soaring over
Galveston's glittering coast
in the early stages they sneer
at death and Pulitzer Prizes
I tell you the war is fought with pain
Saturday's ambush not yet over
and now it is Sunday
calmly playing a melody of survival
how many pink pills to take
how many covered wagons
have cracked up
on I20?
