When Horses Go Mad

Everywhere I walk
I find pennies in the street,
bird feathers,
leavings of torn shoes and pants.
This is a cold winter--
bitter with labor talks, frozen produce,
surgical strikes against one enemy, then another.
There is talk of work in the valley mines,
of foreclosures and farmer suicides.
We are at an impasse.

Cowed by law, by whispered defamation,
I have written of this as well as I can--
sharpened my pencil on a stone,
shaped my life within metered lines.
I know this:
there are no more secrets
between men and women.
Ill, dead,
starved to eye and bone,
we have all become
bad meat for the butcher.

Chasing Saturday Night
for HWK

In a swirling room of carnival colours
we forget ourselves,
unraveling, unrepentant in a smoker's mist.
Saturday night is 10 to 2-
the sleek and sleazy equipped with the latest cell phones,
the early crowd and the midnight shift.
Impatient with the radio's popping drone
   of patriot's leer, the lost in time,
we thread a track, a trail for three leg loners:
a ponytail cowboy from the Sin City cult,
the honky tonk Cajun, the Baptist backslider.
As a biker girl tightens the tangle
of free form shuffle and Swing,
the university crew leans in-
swapping, laughing,
their beer lines swooning syllables of slang and sexual scorn.
The news walker whirls from band table to bar,
energy as mysterious as her errand.
Pool players lay cue to break 8 ball, 9 ball,
the bitter couple sways, over-served, semi-conscious.
He kisses the curling corner of her mouth.
"I'm done with Texas," he says.
"I can't help you."
Night's call is quarter to two-
band load out, last round of drinks,
the customer crawl to land yacht and Lexus.
The air is still-
cars, streets, sidewalks slick with rain.
Reeking of dark Bacardi, Marlboro Light, Macanudos,
we head towards café coffee and eggs.
The freeway lines empty toward home.
Above us a landing jet searches for lights and tarmac,
the moon descends in its arc.

R. T. Castleberry is the co-editor and co-publisher of the monthly poetry magazine Curbside Review. His poetry has been published in various magazines, including Zuzu's Petals, Snake Nation Press, Poet Lore, Another Chicago Magazine, Borderlands, Illya's Honey and Main Street Rag.

Email: R. T. Castleberry