Where Life had No Value, Death, Sometimes, Had its Price
score for voices
for pablo x
& nancy e
I like a look of agony
to a discerning eye
camera eye a cruising vulture
over rubble, unfinished buildings
outskirts of no walls no stairs
humans who live after us
against us your hearts not harden
stranger standing beyond novelty
arrival a creak of laid boards
materialized out of thin air
do not sham Convulsion
nor simulate a Throe
makeshift camera sails past
shadow of thistle, rusty iron
broken color comics
the flesh chopped devoured rotten
we bones ash and powder
stood examining a poster
its sketch and customary legend
Mexican fashion Texas style
Eyes glaze Death Impossible
Beads By Anguish strung
camera zooms past bright flutter
medieval flowers, tethered goat
lean gossip cooking old folklore
of our troubles no one laugh
nor have disdain of we who hang
faint sense of visible below
stranger low-slung itching to kill
stranger with no indication turned
straightway dangerous
like Stillness in Air
Camera sweeps outlined sky
here camera stops
bright windy blue moon sings
Never any time are we tranquil
but swing here, there, with the wind
faint glint in slitted eyes
uneasy hair-trigger violence
reward on delivery, to Man with No
Name
Eyes around me witnessed
what light I could not see to see
words from:
Emily Dickinson,
"I like a look of Agony",
"Much Madness is divinest Sense",
"I heard a Fly buzz--when I died"
William S. Burroughs,
The Wild Boys
Francois Villon
"l'Epitaphe Villon"
(translations chirot)
Joe Millard, Sergio Leone & Fulvio Morsella
For a Few Dollars More
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