I recognize my middle-age nostalgia
for old rebellions. It’s human
to cherish bravery later, after
you’ve yanked the cornerstones
of its beliefs. To admire
on a shriveled road of compromise
the swelling of a stubborn chest
struggling through welcome hells,
face to face with fire like the lord,
searching for maps marked
with the treasure of love. Now,
it seems prudent to turn down
the heat and suffer the penance
of silence. I try to bury the bubbling
in the froth of a Guinness, but
by midnight ale makes me divine.
I buy a round with my right hand
and lecture a legion of lost angels
on the witness protection program
of our souls. How we sold out
for shelter, traitors to the crooked
rain of our nature. We’re mascots
for our cold feet, hiding
in thin tents of affection, wandering
the wasteland of fuck buddies
who will never brew us the tea
of comfort at nightfall or help pick
tomorrow’s proper shoes. We pay
for our sins in bad gravity, whirlpool
with the romance of our youth.
Providence always finds the drain
in times of cowardice. We’ve lived
in the thrillparks of fast delight,
have become malignant charismatics
like the kerosene drunks
of the Depression, philosophizing
on the black holes of our lives
in the shadows of crumbling
railway stations, skunked
on dollar wine. We say
things ain’t like they used to be,
wear self-pity on our sleeves.
In each word there’s a glory,
in each glory a story. And when
we say
tomorrow we mean yesterday,
and when we raise glasses
we mean we’ll be brave
again, but not today. Not today.
