Ashtray cologne. Prime of life. Dead music. Punk music. Dead punk funk skunk music.
Tender. Tinder. Rooftop dates on budgets. Slavic slurs. Buzzing.
Crestfallen. Alcohol swipes. Right. Animal fever. Fervor. Weightless expressions.
flutter and flit, wings a blur of gold; a whisper promises at night,
of bright futures and dreams fulfilled
careful hands reach out to grasp it, but its feathers slip through fingers like dust collecting in the corner
a world where truth and meaning are elusive, wings snipped
power down; paper crown; chords cut
searching for the fragments of meaning in the shattered pieces of gossamer dreams; but often, all that is found is disillusionment and despair sitting in the corner of the room with legs and arms crossed
yet still, wings expand, lift, cut through ozone,
hoping against hope;
even in the midst of fragments, a neon beacon glows, strobe lights repurposed for this dance
in flight
when I come home in the evening and look up at the sky with an unkempt mind,
I see a million things in splendid confusion, and with activity of infinite company
the pipe’s glad whistle towards morning spreads with alert;
shrill noises in my ears sound the alarm, feed the growing mollusk
burrowing into tangled veins splayed across an ocean of fear
mocking-
birds that nature incites to sing are saying and well-away, but make sure not to stay all day!;
and it startles me with their groveling cries
the day is very much awake when I lament that it must have a night-brother at all;
but obsidian shadows follow me as death lurking in the creeping footnotes that I never read,
as if its time shone only as a counterfeit light on a mirage to be resisted
deliver me from constant distraction!
deliver me from constant unknown!
Fred Aiken Writing 