Epistle of a Desperado
The night is made of memories, who have no shadow
in the light of day. From darkness I came. In darkness, I
trace each step. In darkness, I will surely die, but innocence
has no place here sifting sorrow and ash on sheltered paths.
Take what may have been my heart and scatter it among the saints -
that each may know of all my pain and sorrows.
Fingers of smoke trace pastel skylines, for the sake
of a song. Captive to the click of heels and the measured
gait of fishnet stockings, I surrender to the warmth of
another expresso. Youth struggles valiantly, but finds
only death in my reflection. An old wolf, pausing for breath...
I sit alone, sipping wine by the old garden wall
as shadows lengthen at the forest edge.
Leather jacket, silver cross, white collar ... telltale signs
that I rode shotgun for the Iron Messiah during the apocalypse
of '68. Without warning or fear, we exchanged sweet lies
before the altar of salvation ... but in the end, we died well too.
We lost a lot of good souls on both sides of the war,
but when the count came in we still held the crown.
In a world where circumstance divides, the last butterfly kisses
of summer have taken wing, leaving twilight to her palette of
pink and blue. A faint chorus of hollow pleas, escapes the beaks
of orphaned starlings who ride a bitter wind to twisted pavement
death. Lone dancer on a crumbling bridge, in highwire ballet.
Silver diamonds on Diablo bay, shimmering into silent gulls,
then back earth again. From on high, the voice of God as I know it -
"Jump the angels do not care". It is in the absence of dreams,
reality begins to shift ...