For the Likes of David Pecker -- ii

You may remember--if not, have a look--yesterday's post offered a little more than half of a "poem," by an old friend, John Leax, who put a book of such meanderings together based on title lines he picked up from National Enquirer--they're his stories, but their headlines. If it suits your fancy, call them "found poems," because, as a matter of fact, they are--they're "found" on everyday grocery store tabloids.

Here comes the second half--two duck hunters who, to their dismay, find that what they knocked out of the sky was actually a celestial being, who--woe and woe and woe--appears to be dead.

Odd thing about Leax's oddities, they're funny as anything, and then again, when  you think about them, not.

That's their art.

Duck Hunters Shoot Angel (second half)

"Ain't no angel," I said. I was thinking,
if it was an angel it woulda sung out
from the sky hosannas and not come in like
some buzz-bombing buzzard set on supper
It woulda shouted, "Holy, Holy,"
and I woulda known to take off my shoes
'cause Christ himself was coming right
behind. But no, it just come on at me
like nothing you never seen, so I pulled
up and killed it. I was thinking that
when Harold gets to laughing. He just
plopped down in the cold muck,
clutched his big gun, and laughed.
"Oh," he gasped, grabbing for breath,
"you got hell to pay." "You shut up,"
I said again. I coulda shot him
and buried him and the thing
and no one been the wiser,
but it was getting to look like an angel
to me. I couldn't think what else
it might be, so I left it with Harold
and the dog lying down looking
in its eyes, like it understood
something I didn't, and went and called
the sheriff. He come right along,
along with a Baptist preacher he rung up.

The preacher stood over the thing.
"That's an angel all right. Biggest one
I ever saw. Sure be a shame we won't
ever hear its word." And he looked
at me like I'd killed his God
and nailed up his church forever.

The sheriff said he couldn't see
I'd broken any laws. Angels ain't
protected or anything, but I don't know.
I ain't never killed no angel before
and ain't nothing no one can say
seem to be the right thing.