Wearing
whiskey like a winter coat
and
melting like candle-wax tears down
the face
of a crumbling monument.
This
isn't the life I chose.
So why
did you give me an option?
Where's the glitz, the glamour,
the sex, bloodshed, and explosions?
Where's the gilded corridors and
arabesque spires of pomp and intimidation?
Where's the Devil come to tell me
that I'm his son?
In forgotten corners
spiders
spin tapestries depicting centuries of treachery
but the flies
have no eye
for craftsmanship.
A leather-sole paints them all in
two-dimensions and moves on.
Down cobblestone alleys where the
homeless catch flicked cigarette butts in their mouths.
Downtown streets aglow with the red
and yellow lights
like eyes to judge pedestrians.
So where are you?
What are you?
Are you drowned in the seas of
moonless nights
that ebb and flow in
discordant rhythm?
Or did you just forget?
Here I am all dressed up with
nowhere to go
and no money for the fare to get
there.
My pockets digests a couple of
quarters, a broken pen, and a gun
as I walk to the docks with limp
I'd never noticed before.
The world is so still that I wonder
if it's dead.
Standing neck-deep in the frozen
black waters,
I shove lose change under my
eyelids
and reflect on my regrets.
