off-track

It’s sprung
like a cuckoo clock
at the wrong time,
pendulum-less
when I wander
the streets;
the bitumen
slick with rain
and black as voodoo,
where the water-colour
reflections do not
ooze,
where they do not
meet reality.

Hypnotized
by the cinema around me:
city skyline
punched in by skyscrapers
and their needle tops
injecting the heavens
with an invisible venom.

The puppets
are out tonight,
yes the puppets are out
and leaking dark
as they fill the shadows
on the walls, with themselves.
They serve as distractions
from the jewel-robbed
galleries,
the velvet pillows
sitting empty
like the craters of the moon.

The goblets
fill and empty
and refill,
the chemicals come out
to smudge
grand paintings,
but I won’t remember
the coming or
going of these transient executions,
when the time comes
to lay myself down
in a coffin or a flower bed,
still wearing my shoes
and makeup.

Maybe I’ll remember
the increments of those lost hours
in a dream
and forget the details of ether
when I wake.

You artful thief,
the two of you
in that twilight mess,
goodnight.