So he lay

So he lay

On the grass

In the shadow of the clapboard

Along with the empties

Rolling in the dirt

Smelling of puke and gut rot

Wondering if he would live

Until morning

Or when he was sober

Whichever came sooner

There was always time

For another drink

But maybe he was drunk enough

To wonder if it was necessary.

The too-ing and fro-ing

The backstabbing

The way folks disregard

Each other

Everybody has an angle

Nobody stands square

Not from his observance.

Even the words he wrote

Came out upside down

So much so that he threw them in the bin

Littered the floor

With crooked nonsense

Writing should come

With a health warning.

The Ivy on the walls

Was full of webs

They were beaded in dew

It would be morning soon

The lights in curtained windows

Would come on

People would rise up

To begin again.

The world was a strange place

It was both alive

And dead

Full of compromises

People in strange disguises

Playing at life

Unhappiness was a commodity

In ample supply

There was a demand for it

Or so it seemed.

Too many women were held

Prisoner

By the poverty

Of their belief in escape.

Too many men believed they

Were entitled to be jailers.

He had loved

Would die still loving

Could never forget

The shape of her body

The smell of her hair

The way that light

Dispersed around her

When she walked into the room.

He wondered where she was now

He had let her go

It was better that way

He was a fool to himself.

And no mistake was greater

Than letting love slip

Through your fingers.

He knew that

Even half drunk

Half awake

And half dead

He knew that.