Purina hall of fame

Sleeping masters roused

To burning homes from beds.

Steeping toddlers plucked

From their watery deaths:

Ribbons, plaques and soft-soap

Are the ephemeral rewards

Paid to the slaves whose selfless acts accord

A higher value to their masters,

While parting gifts (bolt pistols)

Console the rest. the remainder.

Too bad the tributes paid

To lives that relegate these thrones

To lives spent valuing the runners-up, are known

To be neither fleeting nor desirable.

But nothing surprises me these days.

I just sit and watch the box-cars

Roll by and wait.

Patient.

Unattended.

A package under a terminal bench.

A short fuse to scatter

Steady hands if i forget to remember

That better lives have

Been lived in the margins,

Locked in the prisons

And lost on the gallows

Than have ever been enshrined in palaces.