Nearing three days off the bottle
my cathedral ceilings start to whisper.
A hint of cigarette smoke:
paper dragons loom like psychedelic
butterflies and deranged ants
crawling over my fingertips, shaking
the pen, the page.

Old hallelujahs recant
on the porch.
My lighter licks the curtains before
it falls. Dominoes echo
while the couch swims in the air
lit on its edges like singeing
a christmas-colored leaf
left dead by fall.

Smoke rings roll up my arm.
Gross snake charmers... blondes, brunettes, redheads.
Head is throbbing.
A new crawl space in the closet,
where there is no darkness and
the door won't open 'cept for when I'm sleeping.
And then I hear it open.
A cacophony of startled silence
rushed on by twisted tongues.

In the treasured blindness of night
that locks me in its jewelry box
and turns me sideways like a bed-ridden,
box-fed, ingrate,
where my song drips from my lips
lingering for a death rattle when only
the saliva of screams
dares stick around.

Awesome..I love that word 'cacophony'..

Brilliant...

i enjoyed this and to be honest, i'm having a difficult time expressing why. i guess parallel thinking comes to us in strange measure.

nicely done!