Cigarette at Twilight No. 2
My eyes fixed on the evening stars, the cigarette smoke
Mimicking a gassy nebula, it occurs to me to inquire:
Is there justice outside Winnipeg?
Loutish conversation pours through a window
Lit by one bare light bulb, the convocation in the room
Sharing a unilateral thought: drown the wrong turns taken,
The concomitant guilt and fear. Hideous light for men who owe back rent
To the Founding Fathers . . . All this in the corner of my sheepish eye . . .
Monstrous whims afflict
All forms of flora and fauna:
The rosebush, the sex-addled judge,
The president in a late-night West Wing hour
Obsessed with ratings. Lo stato della tua anima
Or words that once had their due respect? On a balcony above what gave
My landlady her summer hide-away
Until she no longer knew her own, I, too, wear
The gods I worship on my sleeve –
A slew of dead ancients, a few live poets,
A guitar-playing satyr in a Seville garden,
The moon a Montrealer headed for Labrador.