for Dana
hermes ate smoke and it made him a god.
maybe anyone can do it,
just gotta get the timing right.
that wasn’t olympus you crawled up that friday night,
two days before we were supposed to get drinks.
shoulda, shoulda, shoulda.
a new mantra after a lifetime of guilt free gliding
through these sliding panes of stained glass.
the red looks so vibrant with the infusion of blood,
when the sacrifice is made, i hope you will come.
i know what it means to crave smoke—.45 in one hand,
phone in the other,
making midnight calls, though i can’t know
why to bother
maybe drunk dialing but begging for help.
the timing ain’t right.
hermes made the sun sleep
and stole apollo’s cows.
but the sun never sleeps,
whipping through space,
earth is whipping through space,
we got a galaxy whipping through space and injecting us with the beginning of time hidden as dust
making us the beginning of time, though we turn back to dust and go whipping through space.
the sun never sleeps.
but hermes ate smoke after killing those cows.
hermes ate smoke and now he’s a god.
how does a kid with a rifle walk into a park without being stopped?
He could of plugged apollo’s herds with the shells of his gun
instead of smelling the brimstone from the muzzle of that gun.
brimstone purifies the reek of the dead (so homer said) but now that brimstone rotten egg stink reeks over this world.
breathe deep! breathe deep!
i had a phone in one hand,
calling for help.
there’s never an answer
when you’re calling for help.
but the timing wasn’t right.
sister outside the door heard the click,
saw too many movies,
knew what the click meant.
she pounded on the door.
I nearly died from embarrassment.
Published in [luvtrhong], 2004