cheap beer in a green can @ 10:08 a.m.



saw a female deer this morning

floating angular just beyond the pine trunks

in a neighbor's yard



this morning also smelled a creek

running deep and low far below the culvert

canopied with wet new green leaves



it smelled charry beer-like

the way I remember these creeks

smelling 19 years ago

when I was as much a kid



thanked the wet mist sweet May

morning air for the thousandth time this

season for the revelation of oxygen



in absence of

mass accursed

addiction



though all the news in the world this morning is bad bad bad

with evil is afoot in the land

heavy and strong

much, and perhaps a little worse, than

it always has been,



the secret the Evil Men don't know

is that their rule is not

mine



and neither

need it be



yours