The Execution
Originally appeared in the chapbook The Execution (1991)
For Richard Egan
I set out for Caledonia
On split rail conduits laced with buttermilk
Determined to catch the chalk of a moon weeping over Washington County
Cocked and primed for legato lines of sherbet-sickle
But somewhere south of Highway 8 at el. 1200+ I stumbled
My eyes spinning under lids scrubby as the hills hugging Potosi
Where that night an execution was scheduled
The ultramarine sky was circumnavigating itself
Roaring a noose to remedy its own suffering
I remember allusions to greeting cards and voiceless jokes spattered in the swirl
Wild data and heinous tales sailing like linseed over the woods of Washington County
Was I assaulting myself in a tailspin of stickers and bark screams
Tumbling ridge to hollow like some pitiful sled raging for its keeper
Everywhere oh God shaking the nightmare of oak-tide
Accelerating convulsions of the shaggy-faced rough-limbed
Goddamn it I mean a rag-tag patchwork of
Post oaks blackjack and emasculated hickory
Pock-peckered with junkyards and trailers grinning gooseflesh up the ravine
Scrawny shacks with thunderhead windowpanes gnashing
Knobs and valleys bristling viridian whiskers sopped with pine knot gravy
The same red roads drooling reflections of tableaux right out of taxidermy or old fishing manuals
Somewhere a feedstore succumbed to my cartwheeling
Two walls fleeing like curtains
But there were no cattle no fruity bales
A lost gas station blew out its windows at me
An outhouse collapsed and whirlwinds gave chase
Targeting me with "saplings" of boards bearded with olive hogbristle
Then came fresh screams lashing like roadhouses in blazes
Triggering hideous hoots and hollers
And I saw those many miles away the prisoner rising
Shimmering
Molting sheaves of electrons
Farewelling his kindly cadaver
Spiraling like a creek of diamonds into the lightning above Potosi
But as I strained to somehow signal
A quarry launched a chain of unmerciful blasts against itself
Exploding dolomite veins like tsunami of icebergs
Dashing what was left of topography
Shanghaing the whole gut-tattered night
Ejecting me moonless and naked…
I fell to Highway 8 on a wheelbarrow of bloody pine
And howled like a buzzsaw all the way back to my own mystery
The foddered cream of Crawford County
David Thomas Roberts (1991)
