A Shotgun An A Sad Day (For Hemingway)

 

Like father like son

 

A dark bull oozes blood from a trembling vein
stamping its feet angrily at the earth that is about to swallow it
and there you are, silently watching among the cheering audience
the muscles twitches and the heart pumps, some with joy and all with fear
astonished at this undeserved day and this undignified
death
under a Hemingway sun, full of vitality, snorting, scoffing at this dark celebration
red wine from brown ox hide leather bags splashes red stains on the pavilion
as the twitching skin of the bull spills red blood on the warm arena sand
and there he is with a serious look, the spectator
of art in Paris
of fishing trips on the Cuban coast and rum cocktails and easy women at the bar
staring into a dark, rumless night
there is no shouting audience now and that bull
is stomping it’s hooves, but there is no
sound
or warm summer air to carry it
or even blood that flows from a mind demented from age and regret
it is a ghost, a memory, an acknowledgement that you will die
and in the end you meet again
only this time with lack of vitality in a narrow, unfathomable long and crooked
silent street
with the light so far out of the focus of weathered eyes whose seen it all
that after all

it might not be the light at all