Outside my door
Beneath the hum of the spinning machinery of the night
The mechanized whirl of the star crusted mammoth
She waters her blouse with a stranger's lament
Grievously mourning the separation of what is
and what could never be
Carried away pell mell by the picking magpies
of lowered expectation
And beneath the bluster of the ancient whorl
Cars hiss past my window to remind me I'm alive
Sunken beneath the levels of minimum expectation

At least the hollow men
Stuffed with straws and petty blows
Had a space with which to be empty
Their petrified corpses litter the books
Mammoth mausoleums of man
Does the moon not pale at their description?

But these monuments are cold and skeletal
They do not burn with youthful fury
They do not wipe her tears
They do not whitewash her fears
And neither do I
Locked away in the isolation of my own discontent
The lighter flicks helplessly in hand
The bones of those hollow
will not catch

And on each side of my door
The other half shudders
Broken by the weight
Of lowered expectation