Quatrains, Derailed

There are no warnings to be had
in the notebooks of Nostradamus;
his prophecies were hellish-mad
and his couplets fell upon us

Like a circus,
tumbling down the Pyrenees,
and just as he fooled the Medici,
the people still board his lies

Like a bus,
covered in tabloid headlines,
traveling at the speed of vagaries,
and smelling of winos pissing supine

Into the air,
of a dark summer’s night,
aiming for the constellations,
but just not quite

getting there.