James Piatt

Is it desperation…
Drenched in moldy memories,

The hallucinatory beat of
A broken jazz saxophone, or

An antediluvian lake where
Dead fish swim after midnight, or

A place where lonely people
Cut their hair with metal shears

While they paint scarlet roses
On a bedroom wall?

Is it a broken dream that
Echoes like metallic smog, or

Desires twisting like tendrils
Hidden inside toxic mushrooms, or

A blue psychedelic pill that
Confuses similes with syntax, or

An eerie reflection of death on
A dark night that haunts dreams, or

Is it a brash song sung by
A slinky chanteuse in a cheap bar, or

A decaying prayer crying
Inside a shattered cement grave,

Where worms gobble at unreality, and
Boney hands scratch toward your existence?