About trying to put into words a night hunting experience.

The ride was noisy.
Mike drove. When he wasn't shouting
over his left shoulder to the ones
in the rear he was pressing the clutch
pedal in order to rev the V-8.
Its raw power, reeking underfoot,
excited a place in his guts.
When he'd let up suddenly
with his right foot
the exhaust would backfire,
ring out like shots
into the chilly night air,
shots with no aim.
All the while
the scent of ploughed
fields teased their dark nostrils.
The two in front listened.
The three standing in the bed
hurled messages, vituperatives,
actually:
"Left here. Right at the fork.
Slow this god-forsaken chunk
of junk down, ya hare-brained
Texas steer!"

"Hey Benny!" Benny was the
passenger in the cab.
"Kick some ass, will ya?"
one said.
"Yeah," said another.
"Swat the shit out o' that half-assed
insect sittin' beside you there.
Don't take no stuff."

But Benny did.
Year after year.
Rough stuff. Teased till he was
sick of it. Every sort of sick.
Till the tunnels
of his mind clogged
and any faint beam of light
hitherto extant at the ends
petered out, became eclipsed.
Till he could have screamed,
feeling quite capable
of carrying out the vilest
acts of execution
like those ooh-ed and ahh-ed
over and recorded
in the Guinness or some
such annal;
acts of authentic evil
surging from somewhere deep,
he picturing them
with staggering nonchalance.

Hell, did Benny take stuff.


They bagged four that night.
Benny and the others working
together. Snitched them from a
rutted cupboard as easily
as robbing a child, a near
waif who stands ogling the
penny candy neatly boxed,
arranged one sort after the
other, in a kaleidoscope
of shimmering hues, shades
that flagged loudly the hungry
mileage between them and the
glass of the counter.

Four hares they bagged.
Four cottony pinkeyed dumbos
who traversed dirt moonlit roads
that night; who froze,
frightened of an oncoming pickup,
its garish plays of whoops,
laughter and light.