So It Was The Desert

So it was the desert

A place you called home

That’s where it happened

You came out of the sand

like a scorpion

Long arms

Smiling like a crocodile

We burned under the sun

Cigarette boys

Unemployed

Full of lies and jokes

We talked of little wars

and violin girls

Grunts

Snake dreamers

In the desert: that’s where we met

And like the lives

of our drunk fathers

we passed the days

In smoky rooms

On the edge of a dirty creek

Lulled by the music

Stopped to play

those weeping strings

And somewhere on

that flowered street

we became gladiators, men

Or so we thought

Sticky fingers

An infamous tale

We carried on

Found jobs

Grew worried

And drank over a table

like those tyrants who fell before us

Testing to see if we too

had the same disease

If we too would also fall

for no good reason

We regretted

We chanted

We survived those Decembers

The Sirens;

The chill sweeping

off the mountain’s back

And now, like a wheel

Like an old undying creek

The days flow

Waves of blurry dunes

Still worried

Still punching

Alongside our ghostly fathers

Alongside the golden scorpion

We regret

We laugh

And wonder what will be:

Songs of cactus pang

Songs of prickly lives

In the desert anything is possible