Coffee, love and other instant gratifications

You could live here
(people do everyday, you know)
among the relics of age
and the weight of families
and pasts pressing
down the empty
spot on the bed
heavy like a lover
who's memories haunt dreams of the
future narrow
narrow and dark an alleyway
at 3 am some Saturday
night too drunk to
distinguish the echo
of your own steps from
those behind you.

What terrors await us
in our own minds!

A lapse of
judgement this looseness
of a shoelace could
you have ran back to old
vices or to some safety
net acrobat high in the
air dancing so close
to disaster the crowd
waits with bated breath
for the sweat on their
own palms to create
a slip peeking out
from under some woman's
skirt causes an involuntary
lust in the man behind
her as he holds a daughter
who must grow up with
the memory of her father's
failings, the sad man
the mother too close
to leaving love grown cold
and bitter.

Any child would cry
as if Santa is not real,
as if it matters, some deep
love festers after years
springs forth fresh as
that first moment, longing
stretches like cats across
vision langorious and
easy as apple pie
which of course is not
easy just simple as
counting to 10 during
hide and seek peeking
at 8 or 9 every child
cheats it's a wonder
we discourage the basic
desire to win some
we all lose some the
scars of our shortcomings
long and evident mindfully
we walk down broken
sidewalks each step carefully
observant of some private
and defunct religion
each breath a prayer
each beat praise
hurry through the
moment looking for
some kind of estatic
joy or wrong to right
but still we hurry past
each other as if we
were only one
the rest delusion and a
misunderstanding between
synapses in the brain
hallucinations are more
interesting to talk to at
night anyway.