A tired bone,
Seen through a lizard’s eye.
A broken blade
Lying rusted and red.
Three-hour nights
Filled with grey-blue dreams.
Fingernails and tadpoles.
Grassy fields and water wheels.
Greasy engines and lighter fluid
All living in slithering blindness.
A stone radio
Heard through a snake’s ear.
A beaten board
Standing without a nail.
Three hammers fall
Against reptilian scales.
Fight-weary and blood-shot.
Finger-blisters and black sisters.
Grey rodents and day-old cheese.
All slipping into their burrows.
Give a glance
Through the facets of another’s eye
Where visions are set
Upon the smoothest of stone tablets.
Let the creeping
Sneak behind the stone
Breath-easy and horse flies
Fall heavy and stick quickly
Tongue lashing and feeding
As the lizard watches all.
This is my journey
— Nate Long “Owl”
Originally written in April 1993
Pen and ink with digital manipulation