“Between a midsummer’s nightmare…”

7/20/24

Between a midsummer’s nightmare and post-traumatic guilt,
I etched the outline of you in my mirror and said three times
his name, like Faust, to deal with the death my eyes have
in you, trading place of heads I’ve adopted to avoid.

My jaw, thick black hair, empty stare– all reflective depressions —
conjure craters on my chest, I shaved flat to meet hell,
Sartre, now a stranger to him in a far off foreign land.

Placing bottle in my head, inside are invisible MacGuffin’s and
land-locked crests like Lion Tails on the doorstep of an Irish pub
amidst a foggy fall mourn. They sing and clink clogs, but
I always thought I never got the invite of the song ‘bout
pussy-totin’ grassroot boys making and breaking their toys
they displace in part to make meaning, vermouth struggle-buss’d
from Toledo to Quebec.

Toiled trouble lay scruff ‘cross my neck,
not my fault you ruined I for you,
cause I’m bismarck’d lke bullseye,
or Courage, or Casper: The Cowardly Ghost.
Waver, hover, host a candlelit precession
for dead and those alike, clink goblets,
take names, give toasts to memory’s past,
then blink twice, look around — look at yourself —
and wonder, where does time go?

People come and people go.
They change from who you know.
You become them become you,
become bad, become good, become
dead.

“Come back, come back, come back.”
But the devil never hears,
and your soul stays intact.
The sunrise illuminates the mind —
once, twice — the thought goes past
my mind — deep breath, take time,
and move on to the next one.
A new hell, the golden light inside
the suitcase of mafia men,
comparing sticks for names
when they could’ve been mirror boys
floating ‘round mirrorballs, meeting
Mirabell’s in pretty silk gowns atop
Italian townside vista-scapes, from
Toledo to Quebec, to foggy Irish pubs.
They share a language, unbound
to little boys left happily alone.