The Drifting Fade

I'm blind to the brewing

of the great unwashed

though I am counted among them

in circles I avoid.

Jacked on coke,

candy and bile

and a gargantuan weakness

weathering time and tidal tears.

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I'm railing rancor incandescent

at myself in unseen mirrors

reflecting my mind's eye

glaring back at me unforgiven.

Cracked and caked in piss stained

crimson gold and peeling

nicotine yellowy ceiling - walls - frayed,

unwanted and half betrayed,

at the feet of plaster knick-knack figurines,

arms askew, chipped and fractured.

Ghosts of my childhood,

haunted and haunting,

clotted from waiting

for me to arrive at some kind of solace,

gargling flesh and blood with lost animation,

vomiting memories of paternal delirium.

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My seismic hungry

licks all the CD cases clean;

my perpetual panic

tears apart the couch for crumbs;

my inner chickenshit

grips the bedsheets slick with sweat

soaked sweet

from the gin and juice

of a thousand drinks gone by.

-----

Summer some day is

a distant light from here,

the drifting fade.

-----

Blistering angst cuts

on a rage lost in thought,

the angry call.

-----

The mind blends to nonsense,

blessed chewing on my nerves,

the peptic turn.

-----

My wisdom's stillborn stupid

with an instinct for fear

and guile and guilt.

It's what I have and what I am:

the drifting, shivering, sanctifying fade.

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