Chipped, cherry toned toes, pressing
across the cheap, linoleum flooring,
She's wearing nothing but an
over-sized sweater from a college
she's never, ever been.

And her hands hit her hips,
her grin leaves **** those
smoky-stained calcium cuties,
wrapped by chapped pythons.
In which, you have to admit
that 90's bob bouncing is
as killer as cancer.

Coffee table eyes, glancing,
gliding between every take,
she lifts the bottom of that
balled-up, decade-old sweater,
revealing a tuft of brunette hair;
a place where you can touch her;
where you can escape and stop
lying to yourself, you nihilistic nothing.

II.

Breathing the cold, in the murky-dark,
she, laying on a decadent country,
huddled in my authoritarian arms,
we stared at stars, streaking across,
waiting to escape like them, instead of
relating to those already dead beacons.

In every case, there is a sorrow
Attached to advancing age,
And the decline attendant upon it,
Decline physical, mental, emotional,
In every case, there is a sorrow.

But somehow, there is a special sorrow,
In the pathetic tears
Of an ageing man,
Looking back at the thousand plus follies
Of a stupidly misspent youth,

But somehow there is a special sorrow,
Attached to those who look back
With eyes filled with the tears
Of fathomless and torturous regret,
And of promise unfulfilled.

Red Cup Red Cup, colorless backdrop
Just filled with water as its poured with the last drop.
Red Cup, Red Cup all packed with water
But the Red cup gets picked up and cracks at the bottom.
Red Cup, Red Cup, but black and white all around
The man holds it up and a drop falls to the ground.
That drop that drop, like a slow motion  flood
Is thrown to the ground with an ominous thud.
Red cup, Red Cup, now past its peak fullness
As the man sheds a tear for his entire life’s dullness.

Autumn drops from the spit of summer.

It is brown, well-mealed,
perhaps a little burnt;
its plush resplendencies are gone,
its fruits are split.

That spring, that summer
grimace in a scattering of husks, a wizened apple,
is unbearable;

and at the core:
pipped deaths, abbreviations, futures going hard.