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



Dave Baptiste Chirot
USA

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