In State

Barefoot on the paving slab chill, concrete feet feel frostbite emanations in their callused souls; rooftop mystique clamours silent slate triangles, perched the stray cat observers, red-eyes smoking coals. Down to the river's edge where swaying reeds feed mongrel contemplations with moist whispered words; rusty oil-slicked surfaces lick the muddy banks, karma sutra assassins are the predatory birds. Fixated upon a frozen traffic system, bolt-locked, dumb-shocked by electric one way streets to dead ends; barstool poets weep sleep-sozzled cabbage tears for the closing-time tragedy of long-time absent friends. Drunkards shamble on beer-stained coliseum floors, grumble, mumble incomprehensible diatribes into thin air; the memorial park benches flake skin and rot within, white spirits rape the dreams that anyone should care. Deserted boardwalks spool a crooked travel, unravel with myopic glint and blink, cat's eyes dying, died, and the desolated song from night's deflated lung hums doggerel consolation with no meaning left inside. Illegitimate offspring of fatherless daughters and sons, buns in sceptic ovens, burnt baked black offerings; sacrifices on toilet stall altars, to lie in state no more than ether, aborted ghosts, empty superfluous things. Saviours ride no pale horses, immaculate white stallions, galleons never sail to where the sun pristinely sets, for the purpose of this life resides in its conclusion, deserve has nothing to do with it and nothing is all it begets