—WON’T YOU, PLEASE, TELL ME, WHERE HAVE ALL THE GOOD TIMES GONE?

  

                             I’m Bravest When The Sun Goes Down

 

I don’t tell you, of course, but I see it on a reel, habitually.

Sometimes it’s a dive, or a noose, or an engine left running.       

Other times my head explodes like a plum tomato across the wallpaper and shades, crimson splatter glistening like the most beautiful Rorschach ever.

If I had a gun, I’d swallow it and marinate every bullet with my residual aspiration.

If I had a garrote, I’d let it sing to me, till both of us were breathless and benign.

I’m wisest when the sun goes down, hyenas salivating in the thrush, their puce and mustard eyes glaring, wind as shrill as a white flag thrown.

But it’s the days that unlace me, that lay me out along the tarry railroad ties, distant whistle singing its proud glory.

I don’t tell you this, of course, because you have problems of your own, each much heavier than mine, their weight the crush that rests between us, like regrets too futile to face.