An Iron Fish Rusts up in the hills at this age now
even my stick takes a rest
*
on a tarmac a single stone
like aloneness
*
in the glen the silence of an echo
waiting for sound
*
in the empty sky a crow crows
the empty sound of a crow
!['An Iron Fish Rusts' by Malcolm Ritchie [Cold Turkey Press, 2014]](http://www.artsjournal.com/herman/wp/wp-content/uploads/2014/02/IRON-FISH-RUSTS-Ritchie-1x-e1392677133235.jpg)
According to Dr. Philip Masonbar, noted pathologist and jetset raconteur, The Condition was originally described in 1895 by Sir Arthur Blonk. As an afterthought, Blonk said: “Going to decimate San Francisco? Then you must withhold the admission, or prepare to lay aside through strict quarantine all shipping of your irridescent mediocrity.” On which they had embarked. Thus, from San Francisco to the farthest capitals of the Occident, they saw take hold The Condition in all its ugly and irrefutable proportions.
