Dicky's Dinner

Old black worn oak
premises aromatic like a forgotten strip club
white table setting the scene where
white-haired white men
spoke of barter, endless
and blowjobs

young nobles paying tribute to the last trumpeter
shrunken faded skin
miniature man in the echelon of a
mighty life

soft white lies slip casually
from wet lips
torn wet meat plundered from a lamb's ribcage
torrid of gathered consciousness
wine stem in a poet's clutch
the beginnings of my lost mind

visage in the glass on the microwave door
balding and bent in supplication
white lines on the dinner plate
the crowd irresolute lingering with
a soup kitchen shiftlessness
gathering to share the snorkel
in US dollars
the American way
up tempo crescendo the conversation goes
my numb lips pedaling
my heart somehow sustains

in mad raving the veil lifted
my hesitant agency taken by a surge
of pallid ash in the rivulets of my skunkworks
I forgot to look again
bespeckled bicycle chef sharpens his knives
handsome host pool balls in his pockets
we shake
palaver over interests with unchecked constitution
they demand of me
look them in their dark eyes
more importantly, hold their dark attention

this preposterous white courage
white streaks in my father's beard
spreading across my own face
the bay boys beckon with honest intentions
they don't care
I remind myself again
they don't care
maybe it's not the smoke
maybe it's not about how much hair we have left
maybe I'm doing alright
after all.

TA