that red bloodshot eye, they say,
could be from almost anything, maybe
stress or cancer or certain death or just
the dust kicked up from humanity’s
death march to a great silent end-times
regardless, this, tonight, is not the end-times
just a ‘shut the door and bury your life’ kind
of night, where the faintest light gouges
this bloodshot eye into rank, feeble submission
like a migraine magnet apocalypta heartstop
and everyone else goes a’marching downtown
into the soothing tangle of spiders and flies
the sun sets outside the window, and with the
lamppost dead on the corner the stars dare to reveal
themselves, diving back into the void when
busted up Lincolns and Volkswagens trundle by,
and then, sometimes, the stars come back,
as if to say, you will not go blind and cancer will
not eat your guts raw, but if you can learn
to walk to the door with your eyes closed, if you
can count the steps to the corner, to the river,
to the graveyard on your own, maybe
the end-times will never arrive, for you,
for you alone in the dark of a bloodshot world
–James H Duncan