He paints his ashtray
alkaline blue,
a petty tip-of-the-hat to
harbingers of evil,
men between men and
women sitting aside,
head bobbed
in embarrassment.

What have we become which
normalized gestures do not
puncture?

His alkaline blue ashtray
trading dust for roach buds
and where is he off to,
brain sorting sentiment with
barred numbers, statistics,
inaccessible phenomena.
Pains to say most often he is
wandering in the wings
flapping for attention.

How humanity must suffer
in the name of
self-effacement.

He and his
alkaline blue ashtray
skitter across the landscape
(a da Vinci,
a Mona Lisa)
again in apathy to watch
petty tip-of-the-hat prisoners
wag thumbs and call
each other names.

In the end of things,
reason does not prevail.

The dust is all.