Millennial Farming
Robert Erichson

To those who desert their farms
            who follow the arc of decay
            to its source in the back streets of big cities
            who dream of droughts, and twisters, and the axe.
To those who walk unseeing under sunlit trees
            who shoot-up in the furrows of crime scenes
            who write love letters to killers
            who leave open all their windows and doors
            to lure in expert sadists and learn their art.
Remember the stars will scratch your eyes with
their stiletto heels, with the razor-shock of their glory,
like hookers with bright sharp teeth
and you'll shoot come at them,
shining your blood back at them.
They'll give you commands.
Kill this one, Kill that one.
We're never completely alone.
You were wise to desert your farm
before the angels come,
like detectives in togas
searching for signs of disturbed soil
where a body thrashed against
the last seeds of your desire,
where the lights of this world switched
off and you were buried under the
death of stars.
Back home, someone murders your
neighbor.  Slash and burn, detectives
dig in the corn-fed earth and mail
away the crime scene.  You know,
instinctively, there's no place safe enough
to farm.  Bones salt the earth.
 The clouds hoard
their gardens.
This is the way we bloom the murdered.
This is the way we turn terror into produce.