Not A Rhapsody in the night

Not A Rhapsody in the night

(in response to T.S.)

I’m here, ear to the brick post, hair pushed out of eyes

and my shirt torn where it got  caught on a barbed word

as I crossed through your domain to this

site, late, on some street whose name

I have not bothered to read, outside a house whose occupants,

as far as I am concerned, might as well be dead, I certainly am, that

has been made dead plain, or crystal clear – I might

even enjoy their decaying smell – you certainly did. It may echo the smell

that resides within this chest of mine

where my ribs wriggle like maggots around the withering, white flesh.

The port bottle, clenched like a precious key to a distant door,

as if there is hope; if I merely turn things the right way,

I will find sunlight where only night dwells - my eyes stare up

and the stars stare down – we eyeball blindly as I take another swig

and nothing is said except, inside my head where words rotate,

spin, cartwheel,

conjugate misdeeds, misunderstandings, misplaced agreements

and donated misdemeanors.

All hoarded and then given back to me

in the hour before the fall – as if everything resides

on the spinning, gaudy deck of the fairground horses.

The brick post I sit against cares little, less even

than the cheap port – at least it fires the stomach with its leaden purge

of all the things we’ve said and haven’t.

If the night could only be bent -

curved like an arch, or the rainbow bridge, so that morning light

would spread and these demons finally be laid to rest

at least for another day.

But night, like your mind, my absent one, is set,

and I am doomed to forever gyrate around

what has occurred – Yorrick, held in the greasy palm

of your easy and indifferent judgment.

The moon will not rise,

Venus has drifted too far

and Pluto, they tell me,

is not even a planet.

But Mars, oh Mars remains, laughing

in red;

and your words, like Saturn’s welded rings

go around and around in my head

as the temperature, this undying night,

drops

to below that needed for a heart to bloom.

The bottle finally spits itself dry.

I smash it against the road - enjoy the miniature explosion,

wish I could repeat the gesture

on the inside.

Would I then be cleansed?

Or would it set off a series

of explosions – a beginning, an end?