Here's your gun Alan

When you cried of loss did you whimper


           ghost names to the mess of sheets on your floor


While crafting your new art did you


           use the colors of your own eyes, hair, skin


Here’s your gun Alan


You know as well as any that


you’ve never seen a gun before


one’s been put to your head


Through the barrel screaming to the dead the angel


shatters the bullet and what should have been your last breath


Is a shutter that breaks your spine


           and then your heart


Paralyzed and mindless you drift across America


seeing the same parks, streets, lots, drugs,


           stores, pits, gamblers, losers, pin-ups,


           sneakers in the store windows, Christmas displays,


           Vaccinations for the virus of obese America,


           dollar stores, pawn shops, economic highs,


           and the derailing lows of mad houses


that put the gun back into your hand


and, Alan, you saw your reflection on that handle


Did you cry for loss or for gain


or do you even remember


where it is in America you left yourself


Street broken penniless full of Gin and Walt


high up in your life and spirit


breathing to the trees and starving bird nests


on Pennsylvania avenue committing the only unforgivable sin


asking for a bread crumb


  or an eternal silver dream