Long divorced from love,
owned three guitars
and slept with nine women.
Remembers every song,
every poem,
scarcely recalls their faces;
lilt of their tongue
as sleep took hold of them-
not him.

Trigger finger over the snapshot
through each baulk and ****** of passion:
"this is the poem, this is the verse
I can lay down in print
and finally live again."

Night sky too full of uncertainty.
Cannot observe a desert scene
without a commentary
on each unanswered question.
She is dressed in sequins
but what for the spaces in between?
He cannot accept filler,
blank spaces that intercede
moments of ineffable beauty.

Maddening crowds emerge,
bright-eyed and stupid
to each early, pink noise morning.
He awakes, drugged to the eyeballs,
slow to movement; formulation of words.

Each night a battle of sobriety
as the sun does bleed
in the skyline before him.
Each night a generation dies,
subtle points of light
lost in the noise of the modern day.
Screams pointlessly, without need:
"don't forget me, don't forget me..."
would rather leave a scar

than no mark at all.
Lives for the colours
he cannot see, for the common thread
that connects everything.
Tweaks the string of each broken seam

to expose each diversity,
each personal loss
as a collective sigh;
every sleepless night
as an off-white lullaby.
Born for collision
beneath a dying star,
long divorced from love;
he is married to art.