1

Gears rotate and catch each other in time;
Each cog a wheel of teeth running frantic,
Free of all the constraints found in a line,
Then two embrace, colliding romantic!
Love making in modern machinery
Is much the same as mammals in the wild
Strict purpose against primal scenery
“Make the motions, produce another child."
They live each day as the last, courageous.
Well… No, that implies they know how it ends,
Or at least that a future day exists,
Yet nothing of their place when it begins.
In fact, what makes them both so effective,
Is the lack of a future perspective.

2

Such will be the fall of man: “Tomorrow!”
Always the next day dilutes the moment,
Woe to their end; woe to this cursed show,
Always their final days are filled with lament.
For now, there is but a cab cycling
through the traffic like a marked card shuffled,
Ace in the poker deck recycling,
I within; song of the city muffled.
Images flutter past the fogged-up glass.
The cab, a haven compared to my home,
Reality in plain view and contrast,
To the well-kept and furnished catacomb.
Seats discolored from an ancient era,
Each seam was sewn deep to hide chimera.

3

A dissipating frame of existence,
These bottomless canyons of mystery,
Overcome by their own acquiescence,
Cushions stained with genetic history.
Crumbs of sandwiches, scones, or little cakes,
All relaxed between finite planes of cloth.
The sight gives cause for my stomach to ache,
Yet there was at least some truth to this broth.
The driver hurls little spears of words,
He asks where it is I would like to go
[Endless answers] I stare out at the birds,
[Finite time] assuming that they may know.
Or maybe the children, their sweet visions
Corrupted by dark imaginations.

4

Do not all of us partake in the same,
Creating worlds from perturbed desires?
We play around with these notions of fame,
To pull us out from within stagnant mires.
Again, I am asked for a destination,
But I was still transfixed by spectacles,
Some observed, some absurd speculation;
Not yet fit for the dialectical.
I could think of no place to find solace,
No comfort in home or conversation,
No warmth amongst friends or place of hospice,
Again, I am asked for a destination,
He persists, so monomaniacal,
“Mere habit put me in his vehicle.”

5

I lean close to the window between us,
bracing my fingers against the glass pane,
and hoarsely whisper something treasonous,
“I have a home, yet only by its name.
I can see no good reason to go there,
Is there some other place you would take me?
Wherever it is I don’t really care,
As long as we drive, that’s my only plea.”
He concentrates on the road, yet responds,
Offended by my close proximity,
“Sir, I don’t do tours and I don’t sing songs,
But I can keep your anonymity.
Just tell me where to take this thing, and soon,
Else get out the cab, I’ll leave you marooned.”

6

I hadn’t yet unpacked the day’s events,
Not that he should know my circumstances,
Or my plague of thoughts that made little sense,
Yet here I was faced with his advances.
I smiled and relinquished the location,
In a lumbering form of stuttered speech.
He cracked a grin, awkward from his station,
Then released a grunt, and inhaled a screech.
He only moved the right side of his mouth.
I imagined the opposing side seized,
A flat slab unmoving from north to south
Due to some old parasite or disease.
But he only needed his right foot to drive,
While I still needed more time to revive.

7

The night was swelling now, street lights huddled,
In the sky like stars shining through thick clouds.
It is strange how the night life gets muddled,
The day walkers to their shrouds.
As one progresses from day into night,
The people change as if punching a clock.
Those thousands that run around in the light,
Never feel as dense as the evening stock.
Once the carriage reached its destination,
My home; or better yet my apartment,
[Home is where the heart is indiscretion]
My money sank into a compartment.
I waved like I knew him, perhaps I did, 
And approached the address like a scared kid.

8

The door, another jailer but inversed,
Inviting me this time, and I pushed through,
Like the boundary of another world burst,
And past its opening was warmth imbued.
The decadent vestibule [aorta]
Capped with a rickety elevator.
I was fond of that one’s ancient aura,
Though the decades past saw it were greater.
I closed the gate behind me for safety.
I pressed the third-floor button and waited.
Its wire and motors whirring lazily,
A warm sound, industrial fires sated.
It tingled in my ears like years long past,
Reuniting me with myself at last.

9

The third floor only had one working light,
Just loud enough to seem sad and dying,
But tobacco stains don’t really get ‘bright’,
And the brown speckles were terrifying.
My housing was only a short distance,
Yet it could have been miles in the noise,
Televisions selling with insistence,
Phone conversations lacking tonal poise.
One apartment sounded like two people
Bound and yelling through socks in their mouths,
Some smothered screaming about sheeple,
John Wayne quietly conquering the south.
Each door a secret universe unknown,
Vibrant tapestries heard as muted tones.

10

Home was too familiar and foreboding,
Normally a place of refuge from work,
Now, a place of oppressive self-loathing.
Its finality greets me with a smirk.
The bond between work and home was fragile,
One serves the other to sustain purpose,
As if emotions could become tactile,
Parasites on one another’s surface.
With no work to go back to anymore,
The relationship becomes one sided,
A leech feeding off one who is blood poor,
And thus, our loyalties are divided.
Past the threshold to the hungry darkness,
I cast myself. No alms, no catharsis.

11

Inside, the dark remained immaculate,
I fondled the wall trying to make light,
Hoping in the act to emasculate
The receiving void before it could bite.
No decorative opportunities 
Had ever challenged the structure of my home. 
I treated it as its own entity,
Leaving no wounds for which I need atone.
Walls bare of abstract splashes of color,
A closet to hang my coat, by the door,
In the back, a bedroom, which was smaller,
The one mirror in the bathroom, no more.
The kitchen, gauged out of the living room,
left little space for furnishing the womb.

12

My stomach was chiming hunger in knots,
Reminding me the time since my last meal,
So I searched for food to stifle these thoughts,
None. This fridge is as empty as I feel.
When was the last time I bought groceries?
I thought, it must have been a while ago.
Since the gala, with all those coteries!
Longer since I have cleaned by the look though.
The bare shelves resembled my long-caged friend,
With rust and blooms of decay all over.
Though it was a mess I could soon amend,
I felt fatigue just over my shoulder.
I looked once more for hidden provisions,
At last closing the door with derision.

13

I contemplated sitting down to brood,
Feign some joy in this hostile living space,
but the same breath of thought had me subdued,
Hunger hitting my stomach like a mace. 
I settled on seclusion in my bed,
Quietly, as not to disturb the peace,
My jacket made sure my closet was fed,
And I discarded my full body sheath.
Everything was in its place except me,
And the light outside had died long ago,
I greeted the bed as keel greats the sea,
Sleep set in like a breeze on summers glow.
A kiss that tore through this vague normality,
To embrace a world in dreams [reality].