Shetland Pony Mandala
A forced, creaking circle turns, crowds
loser-ponies shuffling. Dwarf horses
indentured to move in unyielding circumference.
Smashed hay, mane-hair, torn tickets swish
to the rhythm of hooves. Once-tricked ponies.
Riding atop, toddlers scream, tiny sneakers
dig into fallow ribs...underfed filament muscle
pained by the radiant ignorance of children.
A meager umbrella rotates, does nothing to
protect the circle from the curse of noon sun.
Shopping carts inch, rattle in the distance.
Some fumbling cowboy shuts down the pony
ride. While his denim-skinned hands brush
a worn beast, his yellowed grin parts burnt,
craggy lips. What a cowboy, to have wrangled
horses two feet high. He's not even from the
West.
Eight Shetlands shoved into a compartment caved
with rust, stalagmites of manure. They baste
in the heat. The cowpoke takes the wheel, grinning,
peppered with pride. Nine pathetic lives
bumping along. Sputtering, the trailer limps
to the Cowpoke's property: more raunch than ranch.
Weeds plague,you can't see the fence for the grass.
Ear smashing creak as the steel door loosens the
ponies unto the parchment earth.
Unlocked from tight harnesses that bring worms
and wounds, as well as keep them together,instinct
grabs the reigns. Exhausted legs,mostly bone now,
usher the ponies to run in a circle near the fence
line. They always run in a circle.
Where You'll Always Drink
What a familiar goblet
the soul slides into.
Minimal cash.
Choose to wither
in a static
straight line
in life's sheltered
dive of a barroom
And. So?
She's cradling some
broken payphone
uptown
trying to
contact your pad.
Receiver's broken.
You're not home
anyways.
You're inside
that most fratriarchal
of barrelhouses --
The Burnt Bridges
Bar
Downing highball
after highball,
hiding a cobalt,
downward cast
face
from the three
roughest, shittiest,
best disguised
drunks in the whole place:
Maturity,
Commitment,
and Change.
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