but now i'm back in the city

"Heaven stinks
from the gass it takes to get there"
--dan kahn


it wasn't the first time i cried that day
i had read a book of poems by Hayan Charara
most of them about his dead mother
wiped my eyes and drank some rum
then shot bowling pins with a .44 Magnum
life is funny
most everyone had gone to sleep but i was
out in northern michigan's crisp july air
i stood trembling looking up at the stars
every glint a thought my father never told me
it's not that we can't see stars in the city
we don't have them
silver teardrops exploding the night... why?
how cheapens, disects, makes ordinary,
solves riddles and is proud of itself
i'd much rather be the paper
cut by knowledge, understanding and evidence
heaven isn't a place, a future, a paradise
it is now

--vikingo