Dousing the fire (written with John Sweet)

The night air saturated with haunting music
aboriginal chants pull down the weeping moon

this is an empty highway somewhere in
the land our fathers abandoned

the blood of a million lost lives seeped deeply
into soil with tangled roots creeping up sewer pipes
to strangle us with ghostly vengeance

and the slaves apply for credit cards
and the indians turn away from the sun to
perfect the art of slow holy suicide

nothing changes in the wink of a dead martyr\'s eye
we laugh at the insanity of life as a struggle to remain sane

our lives all measured with ragged indifference
in the pure brutal terms of absolute zero

dreams snap like wishbones

surrender becomes the only word we know

-gary jurechka and john sweet

March-June 1998

(Note:This is a colaboration piece by both authors listed)