CROOKS
 
    Crooks with brass knuckles in
one hand and blackjacks in the other
carried lead-lined coffins on their
shoulders through the alley below
chanting in unison. The wind swept a
green hat off one head and onto another.
    Off in the distance a poet is
shot with a camera and left with some
liquor and told to demand more from
the atomic clock. All-out on all fronts,
he wrote this all down in the margin.
    Blue and green marbles for eyes
with black specs he was a scholar lost
in the stacks he found a volume that
called for quick measures. The clutch
popped, the tires screeched. The bike
sped away and they gave a good chase,
but they lost him.