the red glow, gentle, not as vertiginous as the air,
is saved only by its ethereal nature
from being swept up into the churning night.

it is this same nature that condemns it to
suffuse into the blooming blue lambency-
which is now green. and now peach.

even feigning surprise becomes impossible
in this place of transmutation
when examined by the soul

those with physical forms are not spared either
but some are more mutable than others:

peach juice, for example, ripens with glycerol, and relinquishes
its color when it diffuses into wine
which holds its color, no matter the light
and will seep through fabric, when conditions are right
like every other form of nectar here

so be free of it, drop it all on the ground
making little mounds of cloth, little
mole-hills in the dark

which blend less, but
black-and-white houndstooth
perfectly matches a brown
Birkenstock (or bag) in our own
personal heaven.

it begins with a decanter of Rimbard
add 2 parts Villon
and 1 part Catullus
throw a jigger of Whitman
and a pony shot of D. Thomas
put in 3 dashes of Kerouac,
Ginsberg and Burroughs
add a splash of Cummings
for flavor and a float of Rumi,
shake well and pour into the
Nebauchadnezzar of D.H Lawrence
while intermixing Hemingway with
a kick of Yeats and Keats from the
oar stirrers of Celine and Pound,
drop in a few ice cubes of Thompson,
cold and solid and a bendy straw of
Carruth with garnish from Li Po and a
cocktail umbrella of Fante to decorate
and call this mixology a Bukowski
and raise the drink high
and pour it down fast
to honor the dying light
from the struggles of
writers before us and
to help us get through
the moil and toil that
holds us back from
what we truly want
within our guts because
I find living, drinking,
smoking, *******, reading
and writing to be difficult
as it is but breathing
should be the hardest
thing you'll have to do
under this dead moon night