Lethargy

Asking for help is losing
The game we played in past lives is present
For a moment, although heartache
Argues otherwise

Unprincipled babes devour the mother, the carcass
Reeks of boredom. Night severs the ties
Of day repeating the phrases given
By angels. My flesh, so weak, denatured and dried
Like buffalo skin in a matchbook,
Files away the long silence and hopes for nothing.
A new dawn never breaks, only the same as before,
A lethargy of sad smiles and regretful embraces.

If she wakes again, if a smile escapes before the silence,
If maudlin joggers pass this house with eyes fixed
Upon the moist asphalt. Were there ever houses like ours?
Walls for windows and no doorways of steel,
Pray for someone's soul, they may need it before
The end. Mine, paper thing of dubious worth,
Lay near the stairs before I imagined learning
Not to miss the pain and loss.

Hours of ashes, the embers dead before us,
A rain-spoken benediction which arrives
Too late. Empty in speech, words flow a river of nonsense,
And devour time wasted by homeless actors.
If wickedness could claim this abandoned parking lot,
Where grasshoppers weave the only dreams,
And proselytize again the empty eyes of the despairing,
Then an end might be made. Ruined meat
For hungry souls, but to sate was never our hope,
Only to silence the barking madness.