Burnt Orange Morning
Under another burnt orange
morning, my mourning,
I eat the steam venting
from manhole covers
on a journey down alleys
wishing with the worthy,
passing judgment
on underground gurneys
when I wobble with vodka
across cobblestone.
It's dark down here,
starving in silence
with stapled lips,
the constant scraping
of lesions for dismissing.
Maybe you'll see me
if my synapses stop staining
the laundry, and scrub the walls
with sage and salt.
If I swallow the sacred
so you don't hear my screams
in the nude of nightmares,
could we tango?
Or would you trip over
my feet insisting on leading?
If I'm frozen to comatose,
would you even know
my hands make shadows
in quicksand when talking
to an empty telephone?
I'll make the ceiling
rain flash-bangs
so you can grasp
the ricochet of gray,
scrape redundancy
from the fireplace,
sweet the ash of audacity
and breathe more convoluted days.
If I stop sabotaging your oxygen
for freedom's unshackled misery,
would you be content
with the cleansing
long enough to masquerade
beneath the Main Street marquee?
I've much to contemplate,
but the tourniquet's spent
and gurus are giddy.
If I'm face floating
in the gutter
with cigarette butts
and gum wrappers,
could you taste the chatter
in my teeth,
take caution and scatter?
I'll rinse my mouth in lightning
to bask on your bench,
napping in nothingness.
Everything's fine.
The sky's scant of courtesy,
and consolation comes crooked
like San Francisco's Lombard Street,
never been there,
yet I'm crimson on concrete.
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