The End Of It All

I huddled in a glass-walled

booth outside the hospital,

dark clouds skulked out

of the south,

I smoked six foul smelling cigarettes,

waiting on the child

 born in Bethlehem of Judaea 

in the days of Herod the king,

April twenty-fourth,

and I was in between

a whisper and a scream

of artistic death,

Fearing the end of it all

as the old man jaywalked in the rain,

carrying a sign with a cross

carved with the words:

WESTERN MYTH

The end is near,

can ya spare 

some change 

for an old vet?

"I need some liquor," he said as

he grinned a gap-toothed grin,

flashing tattoos

as he held out his hands

A dagger through a rose

below King Neptune,

H o l d         F a s t

inked across his knuckles.

"It'll be over for ya'

know it son, this ain't a storm

I seen storms I thought God 

himself was ridin in them winds."

He limped away

with a handful of change

and my last cigarette,

Night came,

A child was born.