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BANGING YOUR HEAD AGAINST THE BAR

For two
For four
For sixteen years,
They work
Till two
Or three
Of four in the morning.
And for hours they drink
They swill
Or chug
Ruby
Amber
And mahogany liquids,
Red and green syrups,
Recipes for relaxation.
Cognizant concoctions.
This will help
Put things in perspective.
This will make it easier.
Exhausting resources
To help pass the time
Or pay the rent
Or forget that
You need to pay the rent.
The ugly
The beautiful
The sinners and the squares
Gather in a similar ensemble,
Some more ostentatious than others.
In satin
Lace
And glitter,
Fat and thin,
They drag themselves
And their egos
In hopes of inflating
Or abandoning them.
Pushing and maneuvering through
The thick of
Night speckled crowd.
The throng plays over the music as they
Inhale
And exhale
The world around them.
Making themselves sick
Without feeling ill.
Poisons open up a whole new world
Of life
And light
Colors and interactions
To the point where you wonder
Which reality is real?
You can see them
Sink and swivel
And loosen
Until they inevitably unravel
In each other’s arms
Or in a big pile on the floor.
The remnants of a body worked
And wasted,
Over saturated by stimulants,
Wrecked and ravaged and wreaking havoc,
Or humbling oneself
To the demand for recreation.
They are inexhaustible in their efforts,
The live hard die hards,
Banging their heads against the bar.
Ka-kunk
Ka-kunk
Ka-kunk.
There is no satiety for the human soul,
There is always tomorrow morning.

THERE ARE NO DOORS

From the looks of the room,
There was no way in or out.
From the feel of the air,
There was not an ounce of oxygen to be had.
There was no light,
Except from a tiny beam
Shining from above.
There was a sky-light,
But it was impossible to tell whether or not it had
Any means of opening, and even so
One wondered if there was anywhere to go
Outside of this room with no doors
No air
No sense of time.
One could try to count toe seconds
The minutes
The hours,
But this was a tedious process to undergo
Simply to lose count of something that had lost its significance
In that little darkness.
The floor felt slimy
Even under one’s shoes
And a few feet away
A constant
DRIP
DRIP
DRIP
Could be heard,
Almost as regularly as a clock
Marking the time
Without hands,
Or a face.
After the shred of natural light
Had succumbed to the
Inevitable night,
It wasn’t long before one’s mind
Would start playing tricks.
The eyes would lose themselves
In a sea of vibrations
From the loss of sight of anything.
And the ears
Would begin to hear specters of sounds
To the point where the sound of one’s own breath
Seemed foreign and strange.
And then the tread
Of soft approaching footsteps,
Accompanied by the pounding of one’s heart,
Would be followed by the swift and excruciating pain
Of a hole being ripped in one’s throat.
The screams come pouring out,
But there is no echo to indicate
Any walls or boundaries
In that endless space.
Then running,
The breath becomes shorter
The pounding of the heart
Heavier
Until the floor gives way
To a harsh collapse,
Followed by the prayer
For merciful death
To end such an uncertain
And perilous
Existence.

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