The Old Mohawk
Posted: August 16th, 2008, 10:09 am
Emmylou Harris cried, "to-geth-er-a-gain",
the pedal steel shed musical tears
that condensed in the stale parlor air
and dripped through sparse white hair
over peppered temples, oozing like
country-sweet molasses into waiting canals.
The Pikesville Rye melted his iceberg heart
made resistant to global warming by decades
of careful choices, all points bulletins, roadblocks
at the edge of town, moats with snapping jaws,
and buckets of boiling oil perched and ready
to dissolve the skin from the bones of any female
foolish enough to attempt to scale the walls.
The La-Z-Boy wrapped it's black leather fingers
'round his antique frame as he sank like
a squirming hippo in quicksand, despite his lack
of struggle, into a sea of creamed cowhide, his
remote control his only slave summoned
the correct volume for help, and Emmylou kissed
the nerves flayed open like the catch of the day,
spreading a healthy dose of twang-tonic over
the crumbling fragments of his withering ego.
His willowy hand relaxed as the shot glass
from his trip to the Alamo tumbled in super-slo
motion like a woman running for the cameras
in her Maiden Form bra, landing amongst
the floral pattern of his grandmother-in-heaven's
Mohawk carpet......a whiskey rivulet dated another fiber.
the pedal steel shed musical tears
that condensed in the stale parlor air
and dripped through sparse white hair
over peppered temples, oozing like
country-sweet molasses into waiting canals.
The Pikesville Rye melted his iceberg heart
made resistant to global warming by decades
of careful choices, all points bulletins, roadblocks
at the edge of town, moats with snapping jaws,
and buckets of boiling oil perched and ready
to dissolve the skin from the bones of any female
foolish enough to attempt to scale the walls.
The La-Z-Boy wrapped it's black leather fingers
'round his antique frame as he sank like
a squirming hippo in quicksand, despite his lack
of struggle, into a sea of creamed cowhide, his
remote control his only slave summoned
the correct volume for help, and Emmylou kissed
the nerves flayed open like the catch of the day,
spreading a healthy dose of twang-tonic over
the crumbling fragments of his withering ego.
His willowy hand relaxed as the shot glass
from his trip to the Alamo tumbled in super-slo
motion like a woman running for the cameras
in her Maiden Form bra, landing amongst
the floral pattern of his grandmother-in-heaven's
Mohawk carpet......a whiskey rivulet dated another fiber.
