a
boarding house on the west side of town
regurgitating
red and white flannelette pyjama-clad diggers to the
sidewalk
that
place where wrinkled old men gurgle through turkey throats
as
they pull upon their wrinkled old cocks
staining
their steel wool blankets
with
the corpses of the next lost generation
a
heart attack coincides with the fireworks
ten
thousand dollars sparkling within the sky
his
last prayer silenced by the booming above
his
face frozen in a scowl to let the living know
how
much contempt he held for his shitty life
his
talons gripping his tattered dressing gown
we
call it loneliness
the
blank faced ambulance officer calls it coronary thrombosis
we
still call it loneliness around here
whores
won't even ride these old ponies
the
long green throat of that stinking boarding house
doors
down each side that half naked lepers cling to
as
they mutter obscenities at anyone younger
they
pass warm cans of flat beer between each other
arms
reaching out of cracks in doors to grasp at liquid solace
grandfathers
of delinquent children
sitting
upon creaking wire beds
as
they write to their kids in cell block five
occasionally
swapping dead memories with each other
grumbling
about the government and its taxes
like
they did when they were thirty
when
they were forty
and
when they were fifty
hot
beer foaming upon stiff upper lip
hacking
coughs and dry farts
scratching
polyester clad testicles
that
hang low like almonds in a worn stocking
stale
hymns blow through their minds
as
they wait to be sliced by the quick sickle
of
the hollow faced one
shuffling
down that green hallway under flickering fluorescent
lights
they
are mossback pews standing silently in a church built
of sorrow
the
preacher's drunk, shot to shit and nailed to a pension
cheque crucifix |
