Thirty-Eight
We all have our own demons
that follow us carrying the bags
offering us drinks when we've had too many
or too much
keeping us up at night with pornographic memories,
laughing like an old man at a 15 year old girl
full of innocent pretty youth
that has nothing left to do but empty,
fade and age,
growing as bitter as the hops in a microbrew.
We all have ghosts that follow us
whispering childhood memories in the smell of cut lawns
and citrus peels
calling your name in a crowded room
when no one knows you're there
taking your breath when you're not looking
and exhaling mortality on the nape of your neck,
continually two steps back behind you.
We all have the hypocrite, the hopeless pragmatist and the apostate
English judges all with powdered fake wigs,
arguing into the abstract lines of our foreheads,
the child, the psychic and the rest of the circus as well,
setting up camp and tearing it down again inside the cranium
We're followed about like small-time ring leaders
faded grey canvas on the outside
popcorn colors on the in.
Mostly it's the demons that keep me going
staggering forward by sheer momentum,
their revelry and drunk generosity an arm around my shoulders, singing,
drowning out the other sounds
the bass heavy, rhythmic techno ring of hoofbeats becomes
an image from Talouse lithograph
that hard nosed lonely rider pirouettes
astride death's sober black and white horse.