He follows in the footsteps of a dead man,
a wild man, an ill-tempered storm
who lashed out at the world so he wouldn’t conform
to the ordinary life from which he ran.

Now that man is dead as an empty beer can.
He follows anyway, trudges on through the lukewarm
waters in his wake; trudges on to deform
the monotony from which his life began.

He thinks he may as well be wed
to his drinks and his smokes and the girls in his bed
all faceless and nameless and only marginally alive.

He never wants to know that absolute dead
feeling that lurks in people’s heads.
He wants the blood in his veins to pump, his soul to thrive.