We Live On The Edge

We live on the edge of civilization
where the well-ordered streets soon give
way to the crags of the mountains
and the dry crush of their tangled brush

where beneath the ebbing
of the day into twilight
the shrieks and laughter of the children
mingle and merge with the desolate
and bitter song of the coyote

where under the half moon of imagination
we realize how brief, how final,
these moments truly are

when lucidity gives way
to the realization
that if one scratches the surface
underneath is the howling lust
of the pack in search

for the blood of the damned.