On the Edge

On the Edge
Or
My personal view of Decadence (elicited by K. Alkalay Gut)


One looks in the glass and a tinful of space is scraped out of the edges
The rust can’t contain its decline into fester, but it shines
Faintly; with the breadth of a thousand dead stars.

To scoop out, as with sorbet, a willing yet spiteful resolve
Of a pregnant parabola churning in blackness
One rides the chrome spokes to every extreme.

To flatten the edges one rubs ash-stained fingers
On a countenance graying with ill-employed time
Sees a livid white face ‘tween the filth and the drops.

One fades into bottoms of ashtrays that shone once
But have since borne existence through squalid brown secrets
Their rasp has been quashed by an incessant dry cough.

One immerses oneself into liquid and silence
Plods a carotid burden into two-faced carousal
That thumps with the dullness of time.

The flashy decline into nothing ad infinitum
Is one’s burning desire and its twin in dismay
That blears in the glass as one stoops yet again.

I can be

I can be

I can be crystal
Wash over day-glo
Fingertips all of me and airbrushed nails
With the cigarette dangling – just so;
My Harley will have to go
For the harlotry of bedridden lips
Applied with the kind that just stays.

I can walk on tiptoe
Highly strung on stilettos
I can balance the book till the end of the room
Give my pinky a life of its own;
My hair’s gonna have to grow
For the bareness of legs newly waxed
Slip-sliding silk can betray.

I can be swish
Butterfly on the hover
I can push it up straight to the sky
Listen for a swing in my hips
I will have to take leave of my senses
For the welcome of sticky-lashed lids
But it seems such a small price to pay.