GRASPING THE MONKEY'S TAIL

By CAKuntz

Desperation has brought me to this place

of waking teenage bedtime preoccupations,

where quiet hollow blacks of night-ness

precede reticent orange dawns.

Fiery autumn golds, crimsons, surround ashen senses.

The falling palettes, and the insatiable yellow jackets having gone silent.

Avian spectres fly about my room.

Spore filled air, layers of the dead and dying,

the beginnings of decay, abet my wanderlust for this hidden sanctuary

where brazen women once danced to slain fingers

men fumbling at their skirt clasps

now praying at the black and whites–

pounding notes that exert themselves against the edges of my mind.

I grasp the monkey’s tail–there are no tigers left.

The songs keep playing over and over.

Looping melodies of dust and smoke, the fallen young,

an end to the world–as I knew it anyway,

rendering words barren and meaningless.

There’s no truth anymore.

The lies no longer keep us warm as they rest, infertile, on men’s tongues–

what we should have said, what we could have done.

Gunfire, and a few more leaves fall,

like an alarm tolling the arrival of destiny, waves lapping at doorsteps,

empty streets, empty homes, empty hearts.

A darkening sky brings the cold back and I can see my breath.

A small cloud–a memory of that elusive eden

that disappears as quickly as the thought from which it came.

And a chill invades my body.

#darkpoetsclub