R. T. Castleberry

Impatient, bored, bearing grudges,

I pick at the day like a carrion bird.

Trust is not a language I employ.

I expect the swindle, respect the clever con.

Working from five hours sleep

I claim the joke of the world,

like a jester’s motley and bells.

A series of retreats serve irony, service ego.

Years sober equal years schooled in cynicism—

for the easy, everyday excuse,

the sacrament of selfish regard.

I carry tension like a strangler’s cord.

I keep my emotions for

imagination’s imagery of soldier, insurgent,

the drifter descending from a desert train.

Raised on a time clock and the forty hour week,

I was trained for debt.

I make my own solitude.