Two days later, he opens his eyes.
Bright sunlight, some blinding enemy,
Like heat waves upon scalding sand.
Two seconds later, he closes his eyes.
How did it begin?
And where, for that matter,
Did his dignity run off to?
He rolls out of bed,
Clutching his greasy head.

It was the annual banquet
For the Pure-of-Heart-but-Poor-of-Soul’s
Club; They dined, they danced, and
Someone grabbed his sweaty hand,
                                             and…

He leans against a round-topped refrigerator,
Stained a putrid brown, which collects
Take-out boxes from all over town.
He ought to find a chemical,
Some bleach-magic in a bottle. He could
Use steel wool, or a sponge,
Make it into a worthy possession again,
But still,
He won’t. And he probably never will.

A metal cap is flung across the room,
Landing soft upon a soil on the floor.
The beer tastes
Like aspirin and the ***** General Electric.
Waste not, want not,
He’d always say.
And so he sipped, and did for
The rest of the day.
Waste not, want not,
Wasting away.

What color was her dress?
Did she dress,
In that purple dress,
To seek? To impress?
Anyway, he thought,
Anyway you stare,
Is alright. Not okay, but did he care?
And he just might marry her red hair,
But only if her crooked grin
Would run away with him.
She’d never seen a black tie before,
And neither had he,
Until he found one on the floor.
“I see you’ve joined our Club,”
She said, stubbing a cigarette on her shoe.
“Just passing through, fair-headed,
Taffeta lady. But it’s sure nice
Seeing you."

A dripping air conditioner
Barely clings to the window ledge,
As if a seven-story fall from
The pathetic high-rise were
No big deal at all.
And it pours its sour, frigid air
To the dark apartment there,
And another ***** shakes itself loose,
As he turns up Scarlett O’Hara
On the evening news.
“I’ll bet she’s a princess,” he said
To an audience of burn-holes and broom handles,
“The woman of somebody’s dreams…”
And glancing at the dieing machine, he added,
“Well, since you are my only friend,
What do you think?”

She kissed him over an open pizza-box delight.
He was probably crazy,
But not as crazy as she that night.
Crazy will do as crazy often does,
Which explains a lot,
If you don’t think about it much.
He should have known better
Than to trust a pair of cloudy eyes,
Or the bird’s nest of a mess sitting
Confidently on her head,
Like some wilted rose painted red.
Some devil’s right-hand angel
Was kind enough to carry
Him home that night,
Staggering drunk, robbed blind.
And crazy never changes,
So the Taffeta lady will remain
Counting all his money in her room
In the asylum for the criminally insane.



Sometimes you live, other times you die;
Two days later, he opens his eyes.