Screaming Guillotines

Screaming Guillotines I. I sit on the wide veranda of this house called America, And I can see the Beast Boys coming our jungled way, Coming like wild torrents of lapping flames over the astonished landscape, Coming with black eyes squinting and staring for a feast of blood. I sit trembling with mouth wide open, waiting for the whistling hearses to come, And the inevitable silent tap upon my evading shoulder. And far far away into the green enveloping expanse, Of consuming trees and obliterating American skies, I can hear the screaming guillotines serenading the ghost dancers. I can see the whistling hearses bringing in the crimson nightmares. II. Time to take my knife again and lacerate the flesh of this dead thing, This once-breathing creature that felt nothing but the slash of profit. Time to spit out the long thin hairs entwined around my teeth. Time to wonder whose hair this belongs to, as I pull out the long strands slowly, Like pulling out long segmented worms from beneath the dirt of a rock. “Ah, do you know the time? Is your sister coming by today? She knows my name, and she can hear the screaming guillotines when they drop. Will she spend some time with me here on my soft bumpy sofa? Will she at last listen, at last hear, my remonstrances of lost love, As we devour this dead, unbreathing thing, Inside this salty steaming stew?" III. The Profit Boys are back in town, And Jess and Jim are drunk on whiskey. John Jupiter and his new bride, Isabel, Are eating chicken and dumplings without a frown. His new suit, in whisky-laden tatters, is Hanging propped on a sweat-stained hall tree. “Lordy those two are riling me; but shucks, it’s my wedding day!” Then into town rides the Domino Kid from Abilene; He’s looking to escape the screaming guillotines at Lansing. John Jupiter and Isabel drink a toast to the future, Their happy hearts pounding with hopeful glee; Then he bashfully presents a wedding ring to his dimpled bride, And kisses her sweetly under the tall Dragon tree. But now, inside their barn, with soft lamplight aglowing, Amidst the rambling rawhide, and a cracked cowbell, Jess and Jim Profit set fire to the hayloft, a fire that is still growing; The Domino Kid lies asleep, eternally dreaming of Isabel.