forgot all but the target

I very well may pass two thirds of the way through the great American novel...

  or at least through a bottle of its whiskey.

I may pass in a cold forgotten temple of of a misguided monk

     by mistaking the dosage or the registry.

My head might very well lie chilled and dormant in an abandoned row house-

        but i will still smell the roses i ran too,

           yet was too afraid to care for.

I will know somewhere between the lack of tears

and the knowledge of their absence,

   That i saw and stood guard over that single unsaid flame

           for at least a second

    (regardless if it was under the cookers of a terracotta army).

Ive seen a thousand epiphanies scribbled on the walls of shooting galleries,

without a single witness sober enough to report them.

Ive seen every contradiction and quandary quelled...

     dissolved on the its over end of the plunger,

      and have awoken to the discovery of every sickness.

Ive wagered the wellness of the world,   on an instant

       and won- but have found over and over

          that the dividends of tomorrow tare no wait

                towards the scale of justice.

Ive masked the winner and loser in deceit and humility,

and asked nothing more than for this moments edge to score a final cut.

Ive traded those moments warmth for pen and pad-

    feeding on the refuse of Camelot-

      while plotting the coordinates of the great escape.

 BUT all that for another,I'm sorry dear,

       and sentiments too sad and true for a dry drunk too soggy to convey...

T H E S E exact letters are the bedding

       for a sleeping validation.

and compose the architecture for a fallen-

   structure still singing sonnets to the sturdy.