Strange Flowers, and: Billets for Bullets

Strange Flowers

        In a wheelchair a little old lady who's slidfrom straight forgetting to flinging food against walls        to pinching the nurse who was trying to kill her,"filthy Russian bastard," till she bled, to pinching        punching and scratching anyone who came near,"I want to scratch everyone," to singing "The Star-        Spangled Banner" over and over, she who never sang,to just sitting and shrinking, flat eyes staring at me,        she who divided the world into fools and bastardsand I'm still not sure which I am in eyes alien as those        of Grays who do unspeakable things to you inflying saucers, now and then taking Ensure through        a straw the way a weevil sucks sap, sometimesmoving her hands over her face to dislodge the webs        or maybe she wants to speak so I move closer, but she'slooking, a flicker, a mayfly's wing, past me to her        daughter's face as if she wants to land there, and herwishing-puff of white hair stirs in a breeze through        the window open a crack a bee slips through, and I recallsomething about bees remembering a human face if        they are tricked into thinking we are strange flowers.

Billets for Bullets

Ever since they moved in it's guns all day                          and half the night.              Rifles, shotguns, assault rifles,whatever. But sitting at my desk, like now,                          is worst, waiting              for the other jack-boot to drop, shakingthe house like a thunderclap directly over-                          head—just now              my heart stopped, really stopped, and Ialmost fell from my chair—oh, those two women                          who, when not firing              guns, strap on weed-wackers or hopastride a mower, a cross between a Sherman                          tank and a              Maserati to chase down everyweed or blade of grass until they corner it,                          then, as reward,              slip into a rubber dinghyand race around the pond picking off frogs                          and whatever else              is cowering in the reeds. But silence,as I said, is worse, since then you don't know                          what they're up to,              and think perhaps they've driven their truckinto town to freshen up their ammo                          stockpile. Big              mistake. For if your nerves beginretreating into place, your heart fall back                          into its slot,              the blood begin to flow againbetween pollarded banks, and the creative spirit                          gets ready to find              its nock, then—they've got you! Wham!Bam! Wham! And there is nothing to be done.                          They're within their rights,              the sheriff says. Get used to it.I look across the valley to the confederate flag                           fluttering half way              up the slope where the guys have decidedquiet is the better part of valor                          and only shatter              it when they blow up Saturdays,or Sundays. But these two ladies have no political                          axe to grind—              God forbid they should get their handson axes. I'd move if I could, but where to? Back                          to the silence of              the city? No, I'll keep on hoping,hope the real way since hope isn't hope "until                          all ground for hope              has vanished," and try to finish my workbefore a bullet strays across the red                          dirt road and finds              its billet, a phrase taught me bymy grandpa who still carried a bullet in                          his chest "from Wipers"              and kept another the size of a fingerin the gas-mask hung up in the shed, and ssh!,                          I hear a bird              outside my window, its song remindingme of the one I heard as a kid in the                          department store              where you put a penny in a slotand the bird on its perch in the cage began to sing                          for as long as the penny              lasted. It knew when to stop. But this oneseems stuck. If ever I could corner the market in silence                          I'd give it away                                for free.