Mr. Coyote spakes
(for John Durham)
Montomery/Hyde Park corners aping chains
slashing down free-for-all stop signs,
challenging any patience remaining
by the city’s confused planners,
translators of supernatural pronouncements,
firemen now arsons of glory
extinguishing their own blazes,
abandoned cartwheel designers
muralizing these brokebrick city walls
with eclipse butterflies.
(and a law gets passed in Missouri
sending butterflies to jail for fornication)
seems your world remains veiled in its cocoon,
frantically peering out from a frozen parade
forming in Harry’s used car lot,
evolving into a routine dice game
populated by nail biters,
boycotted by
St Louis scarecrow poets.
your books fell to the floor, Mr. Coyote,
too weighted from scribbled signatures and mildew,
all authored by the reader, you,
who passed on after the first chapter was paraphrased into discourse
then consumed by you, its creator,
St Louis lamplighter,
bard par excellence.
yes John,
down by your River
no landscape resembles serenity,
no dialogue offers space for the countless characters
for the drunken chapters of your mad life
that self-destructed with years,
confirming your genius
distinguishable
from the rest of us
slag imposters.
Saint Louis
5/74