3841. MANY MILES

MANY MILES

(I am home in the USA)

I have traveled the quays and

the Zuider Zee, old Kabul and

all the murder-mystery ramps

Czechoslovakia once offered. No,

I am nothing, and without my keys.

From Lake Baikal to Chittendenny

have I wandered - rifleman, squire,

dandy, lout. Now I am an old man -

just as well; I survived, cornered in

a dying rage, holding a broken gun.

-

My mother is long dead, and my

father's a faded memory; something

creased, like an old print in my coat's

chest pocket. He went mad in '98, nothing

much else to say - all that's over. And now,

and now, I am a revolutionary. My country

is dead or dying, and I am in for the kill.

-

Yes, come try stopping me. I already

have the knife to your daughter's throat.

Men say that I am dangerous; I am not.

I am a leftover Minuteman from a revolution

gone sour - and truly, truly anyway - it

is they who are the dangerous ones.; those

who cal me that from spite and envy.

-

But, it is Death I am looking back from.

I smiled my last, and they gently

closed the box.