"Whaur hae ye been sae braw, lad?"

I drink sour mash

and my

dead Scottish

forefathers

sleep in the rocks

and potato-peat

of Killiecrankie

and Culloden.

I taste the smoke

and my

ancestors do too,

and when the snow falls

and the clouds

steal the wind, I think

about the

hieland cots of stone and

grass

and how cold

we have always

been.

Fools

called heroes

with

hundreds

kneeling

at their

feet.

What makes a prince but

a crown?

What makes an eques

but the horse?

As I cough up tar

and sniffle snot

and sweat coffee

what makes health

but the illusion

of life?

What makes brave scions

but the hope

of an elder generation

and what is loyalty

other than gullibility?

I smell

biscuits

and manure

and my

immigrant

Appalachian

ghosts, slowly

dripping down

the mountain

chain, puddle

up in the

foothills

of the Land

of the Thicket-Clearers.

The coal smoke

billows

from

a handmade forge

and

a 12 gauge

blast

explodes

a cloud of crows

into flight.

And what is

a noise

but a break

in the silence?