RIDING FOR OUR LIVES

by Alan Britt

Buzzards from the afterlife
circle the entrails of words.

Serrated wings
shadow
the buried keys to your door.

*

Remember when history
was more popular than dodge ball?

Remember those dreadful tidal surges
exceeding all expectation?

Remember Mary’s fury when confronted
by three unwisemen
from some lame Ivy League accounting firm?

And whatever happened to the original Magi
fueling Harrod’s god-awful misery?

Those three humble Gnostics?

So?

She could’ve discharged
all that.

Imagine granite appaloosa stallions
galloping the vaulted walls
of art museums
in the Hague,
in Tuscany,
at the Met,
in Hagerstown, Maryland.

Now, imagine you and I riding those granite stallions,
riding for our lives.

Then imagine British rock’n’rollers
tossing and turning in their nihilistic beds during the Blitzkrieg,
imagine attaining emotional brain functions
often attributed to aliens
circling our explosive blue planet?

Then, again, imagine you and I drifting
dangerously out of control,
dining at Taco Bell, for instance,
in an Einstein universe?

Tell me, where’s the sense in that?