As I lie in bed, Light falls like a stranger’s memory On the walls of palest grey, And tonight, of love, money and dignity, I have nothing to say. I have known every name and noun. Vow and verb, vowel and word And finally find nothing to say. I suppose that’s what must be done, If the floor lies in blatant disarray. I suppose that’s what must be done. There’s a pattern of bricks and torches That are on a screen and are nothing more But the firing of neurons and the burning of my eyes. I would walk out into the night Were it true that I could find my shoes. For I cannot dare have bare feet bear the ground And be mauled by such an unnatural place for them. Laptop lit up Like electric candlelights With candid candescence, Why would I dare into the fray of night, Or daylight’s thriftless touch Which would age and burn me Like a vampire on a pile of wooden stakes That kindled, burnt, dwindled and burnt out. Ladies and Queens of the night, Gathering in a circular court And being veiled behind that smoke And the strokes of grey paint That were here before anyone. She crescendos and sharpens into a crescent blade That glints and glistens by sunshine in the night. Like his scythe, which cut through the light And drew nothing but the dew and due payments. I wonder if he would bother come by And thereby transport me but not my body. For why would he come try And change my position When no other conviction Has succeeded. Without and within the voices they sing Don't dare. Care without the face that does. Share without the side that shows. Despair and depreciate without the face Of sorrows and woes. It's all rolling along and I’ve done nothing wrong. Made no mistake. Made no call to heartache. This is all. This is the hall of the humbled king, Who still bears his solitude But reduced like Vesuvius Has no longer his magnitude, Only that he was destroyed flameless. Without and within the voices they sing. For he was born and has borne Nothing of importance since, but innocence. It is, I suppose. It must, I suppose, be done. It is, I suppose, of no great importance.