the name was
reluctantly removed
with shock and abstinence
sold to another vagrant vendor
and leaving me to wonder

it’s quiet here
in small rooms that smell of
old sweat and stale smoke
no more dissident nights
filed recklessly
and filled with
absent minded
wine ecstasies
penetrated and revived
ten times over

half sleep or no sleep
as evening calls
baiting and waiting
for songs written
by a chaotic healer

waking and walking
in an underworld
filled with black hats
and white queens
they sometimes lie down
and conspire
to inspire
a new storm

and now
a tuesday morning
that feels like
a monday morning
that feels like
every other morning

i hold my tongue
and hear a distant drone
set to an idle speed
phoning home
as we
drift about
scribbling scarce wisdom
on used sheets of paper

blunted by backward thought
vain romances are stalled
by baffled biology
and i am
possessed of an energy
circular yet
incomplete
bowing and scraping toward
a fifth nirvana

what are we to do
when we are
bombarded by
the same old
tiresome cues
with limbs like lead
we amuse and confuse (ourselves)
like grown children
running from a panoramic curfew

i remember standing on my front porch
staring at traffic and thinking
all this life
really is
nothing but a fevered dream

the foundation eventually crumbles
and no one loves an artist
but at least we can
thank the gods for the sun,
for autumn mists that conceal
magic among minds almost broken,
and for leaves that always change their color
before they fall

structure is of no consequence
as sex and death
are pored from the same bottle
as curiosity and virtue

a man gets used to a certain amount of pain
but it’s the feeling of stagnation
of how, everyday is exactly the same
that’s the insanity
that’ll finally do him in

so, be different
evolve daily with the wind
and let us pray that the finish line
is not empty