Thursday, October 22, 2015

Today the World Went Mad

Today the world went mad
and I rolled over and went back to sleep
Pulling the pillow over my head
Either to block out the screaming
Or smother myself

I had a hard time breathing
the smoke was thick as blood
Bullets whined about my head
Like the hummingbirds we saw
At Bamfield on the Vancouver Coast

They whirled around giant stands of Fuchsia
Delicately probing the pink and purple bells
That hung by their feet from
What was left of the balustrade
Along the courthouse balcony

All had been beheaded
and the bodies looked like the
Sides of beef that hung from
Hooks in my Uncle Sal's slaughterhouse
Where I worked summers as a kid

I remember cleaning the floors of the
Blood, grease and offal that littered
the street between the destroyed buildings
Where snipers or siddigues with cell phones
Waited to kill us with a bullet or bomb

Someday I want to wake up without
Thinking I died and went to hell
and this constant buzzing in my head
Isn't the drill they used to relieve
the pressure on my brain

What was left of it