The Adventures of Hopalong Heidegger

I need a gun & a horse

To go with my hat

Otherwise life just feels

Polite. I also need a haircut

But what I want to talk about today

Is premonition. I cannot predict

What any of these words

Are going to do. Happily assuming

That they are capable of doing anything

And I hope they are isn’t that the whole point

To squeeze a tube of language and form

Something like a brain in a séance

I feel alienated from society

The brain thinks and a ghost appears

To shake the table. To use a thing

Is to let a thing be what it is

And how it is. To let it be this way requires

The truth of wine, and wind and thought

It doesn’t hurt that much to think

Unless you have a brain like a clothes dryer

And feel autumn in your bones. Life feels

Differently at 68 than it does at 18

Animals recognize my odor and if you

Send me fifty bucks I will send you

A skull of sugar. Thanks to the invention

Of language I can fold the sky into a napkin

Put it in a box and take it on the road

To make a little money. I mean

Who doesn’t like sitting

In a cocktail lounge in the afternoon

Expanding one’s horizons

As a mechanical color? There is no narrative

That doesn’t draw a little open fire

When the injury is worth it

And reckless abandon is all there is

To remember how serious life can be

And whistle for your horse

Before the police arrive