6924. TROUBLESOME PANGS

TROUBLESOME PANGS

The two things I ever get are sad or angry, one or the

other each. The basted-roast that is this life is deadly

to me. Fires on the hilltop, animals running. Everything

I knew to be, was wrong. Here, in the midst now of rubble,

I stand like a bad tree, just waiting for some jerk's axe.

-

The river is running red with something  -  not as dark

as blood, though it smells the same. Some Italian voice

is coming down the ledge, up above, someone singing.

You know those Italian aria male voices  -  too jittery 

and too high to be sound at all. I dislike all that, yet

here it comes right at me. God I hate opera.

-

It takes me a good three hours to walk this hill, all the

way to the top, and then back down. Up there, I look 

around. Rows and miles of things  -  the snaking river, 

and those funny islands with their flood-bent trees. No

one lives on any of them, though I wish I did. Like having

a driveway of water and nothing more  -  over which no 

one could ever pass. Over which no one could ever pass.