verdict.

i have no idea where this is going. well, maybe i do. i can see it outlined for me. carefully prepared by a diligent hand, bullets leading to numerals, numerals leading to letters, letters eventually leading to an entirely different type of bullets.
i wonder how i will see it all, if i should be fortunate enough to make it another twenty or so years. i can not help but consider what i may think.
a great error or a wise turn of judgment, only the clocks and calenders will have their turn and a say. the vagabond on his street corner, all worn sleeves and torn up trousers, is always the quickest with his verdict. through whiskey slurs and cigarette burns he is sure to have his say.
the clean cut men think just as quick, but their spirits don't ease their tongues. they paint the damned on the back of eyelids, or in the moments where their heads are turned. waiting to hang their hats on your head, but only after you swing from the gallows.
the kind hearted ones dig down and bury their scorn. they keep it hidden until a day of reckoning will arrive. then they will expose all the second-hand hosts and the boys who never waited in line. should they be taken second, they will shout, with vigor of voice and a conscious wiped out: "but, wait! take a look at this here! i have buried it away for many a year, but now hear the truth and change course."
we all make our judgements, and who is to know if we have chosen the lesser of roads. the other men will all tell us if we become second class felons, but not if we have damned our own souls. which roads we have taken, the higher or lower, makes no difference when we all burn away. the higher turn to ashes, the lower become fodder for maggots, but in the end no one will stay.




the scrap-yard shined like an old diamond mind.
an old-wooden cross marked a day.
the fog was slow lifting in the fields of the north.
and the radio man had his say.