A Portrait Once Painted

A portrait once painted.



Through clouded testimonial

descends the dark ebony wings

of a crow, crudely rasping

to the succession of a dream.

Landing on a cross's arms

cawing over a field of infertile dirt

which has sewn no crops this year.



Without a thought left to reap,

the fright remains erect

to keep us crows away.



The farmers care only for land

now, but do nothing with its soil

-just collect.

And though their trees wither

in their yards, bearing no fruit,

they pay no mind...

knowing very well

- mindless of their spoils -

that all things must come

to an end, and die in time.



Without a worry of what's left

for their future sons.



The flame strikes the kindled bush

dead behind the empty fields of wheat

in the grasp of the hot, dry sun.

Rising from the brush and yellow grass

to the treetops is a torch, to guide

the moths and mosquitoes looking for light

- hazing the mirage of a distant oasis

promising eternal life to those who bathe

in front of the blistering heat.



...



A farmer sits naked on his deck

with his rifle leaning by his stool

painting the image of a dieing world

while grinning like a fool.



His canvas painted thick and wet

with pigments of our will

wrapped around the frame of freedom

- a brush, painting conscious scenes

of further hopes he'd wish to kill.



...



This drought of life

is given no end in sight.

The fields, only bare and riddled

with the corpses of questions

and affable field mice

having ate their young

before they'd starved.

Now marking the plains

with meatless skeletons:

having died of thirst-

Their bones picked clean

like a trout, tail-to-head

who also lie suffocated

- to the east

lining the dried up bosom,

of the tumid river bed.



The cross beam makes a perch

for the tired, gray feet

of an aging crow.

Staring past the line drawn

in the sand

between the plowed rows

of stagnant growth;

beyond the gaping fissure

of the promised land.

The blind image now flecking

like the rust

off the nails which support

this torso of severed faith.

The bird now pecking at

the button eyes of

the man filled with straw

and lies-

meant to scare it away.



The crow's feathers once black

as jet, in sights now painted red

by the farmers who wave their

obdurate arms at anything that lives.

The battle rages ever on

between the naked men with guns

over each other's infertile lots

until none are left proud - but dead;

just as the dead river runs.

Once all the force has

given up - their sibilant tongues,

will cease to spit,

the crows will rest without

appeal, and pick it from their

fetid lips.



Living as they always have

unto themselves and hitherto,

resting only when required.

Only fearing the nightly shadows,

- finding license in the clouds

but now free to land upon

a lonely, forgotten stool

and examine

a portrait once painted.