XXIII

The Farm has become a place where tribes collide,
far-flung traces of community, trainwrecking into one another.

I went to ground there to reveal my dreams of metal to the sky,
to bring all the threads together in a knot that could not be broken.

Slowly I gathered the tools for the work, only to see the dreams
shift to structures of words; mind, tongue & memory all I needed.

I had a beautiful black goat named Lucifer, with a white star
on his forehead and horns like darkened moons.

He died entwined on his mother's tether, neck snapped as she
struggled to free herself.  That day, I lost my job & home as well.

The danger of mythic living is clear in this:  all that you love
is subject to sacrifice when the story demands victim or metaphor.

I was left to skin, butcher & bury him on my own, as penance
for my propensity for smashing the present in pursuit of future.

Homeless again, almost broke I left the farm for the city once more,
in hopeless acquiescence to economy's industrial machinery.