USA

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GROCER'S WORLD

Chickpeas next to stewed tomatoes
and spinach sits by baby carrot's side;
paper-covered cans of small potatoes,
sliced up, wait to be deep-fried.

Fresh bread is wrapped and ready,
and stretched across the baker's shelf;
two kinds of lettuce, fresh and heady,
reflect upon their lettuce-self.

Beyond, in a lighted stall is dairy,
the butter stacked with cream to beat;
but should one think that all is merry--
in the back room hangs the bloody meat.

BEETLE

It has no other purpose than
to crawl into the heads of man;
no rhyme, no reason, no plan--
beetle does what beetle can.

TRUCKDRIVER

The bright light's biting eyes
pass by, flaring ahead behind him;
so many miles are dark before,
but he is just a visitor.

Today's night is hard to please
and he has not been here before;
he drives a diesel-fed machine,
but he is just a visitor

Along a blackened man-made stripe,
he wends his way as those before;
an image lifted to stereotype,
but he is just a visitor.

No, he has not been here before,
he is a passerby, a visitor
whose logbook justifies the sum
of the many miles that he has come.

WESTMORELAND, CA

The region west of Westmoreland
is based upon a balance sheet,
the region north shakes back and forth
upon frail and faulty feet;
the region south, by word of mouth,
is dead but does not fall,
and to the east, the very least
said is best of all.

© All Copyright, J.D. Heskin.
All Rights Reserved. Printed By Permission.