vaudeville

 
the clock shows ten to two and it seems awhile  
i am the gasper noe vision tonight the night hawk  
taking in everything in my 360 vantage point that  
keeps on evolving in a blur at the speed of change
i swoop and dive and somersault and barely evade  
crashing into the concrete without my safety net
 
keep floating high above the highrise apartments with  
their all white elevators interiors exteriors housing the  
killers sharks lunatics whores with their prisons and  
dungeons and aquariums and med cabinets with
their bottles of thorazine xanax irish whiskey and  
burgundy wine bought from dutyfree stores
 
penetrate their weatherproof walls of sunset yellow  
with fake renoirs and souzas commissioned locally
levitate above their custom made peacock blue  
silk bedspread stained soiled with stale suffering  
fragments of broken abused faith warped shreds  
of stolen innocence stoic stench of longlost lives  
hit me and i gatecrash falling on the linoleum
pale phantoms of elapsed love stare with  
their marble eyes sewn with care congealed  
by time oozing fresh truth    
 
the shiny tap offers its condolences every few minutes  
to the dead home and its limp listless inmates dying of  
basal metabolism embolism whatnot
 
i seep in thru the granite squeeze thru the plaster of paris  
and the brass and the pashmina and the expensive wood
thru empty bodies and troubled minds and developing fetuses  
bruised canals stagnant air and late night television with
fellinisque wet dreams fresh popcorn shared nightmares
 
blast thru the flint glass window and hurtle above everything  
the manicured garden the azure pool the uniformed guard seated  
reach the high i always seek always sought  
 
it thrills me to see the city a living dying alien organism
an abomination with a million parts alive wriggling choking  
airless gross beautiful in their collective existence
lurid livid in their cancerous decadence
 
drained drowsy the city sleeps sending out new batches  
of data and dead to all parts buying and selling dreams  
smuggling the contradictions and the chaos in small
stiff packages  
 
undiminished adulterated it moans in all its might  
life thrives in strife demons doves dwellers dust
settle in as i die a bit every time upon entering
my own diseased flesh still with foreboding
cold gray and distant my body resembles  
a remote mining town sans any allure
the pyridoxine bottle lies next to me
and somehow i can't seem to reach