In this tired hour of spent beer cans and cigarette butts the chewed ragged ends of hoping for some sort of change waiting for the winds to turn aside the drifting course of the clouds for the sun to shine forth

I am forever dreaming of sunlight warm upon my face like a kiss imagined from some lost impulse some half-remembered thought from years running on end through my closed eyelids light seeps in, making the darkness a blurry pink-red

In this silent hour when the world still sleeps and dew drips down upon the closed buds of the pink and yellow roses in this darkling hour while the sun sits still behind the shadow of the world I circle and circle round an unwished-for thought trying to pretend that I had not dreamed of some simple happiness tried to fight this impending mania of trying to reach out and grasp the stars themselves of flying in that silken purple sky like fabric draped upon heaven’s mantle and like some Copernican madness in reverse I imagine it is not the world that spins on its axis only that my heart revolves like a gyring top

This thing kindled my soul catching fire regretting that this too shall pass evanescent, ephemeral when my heart turns to grey ash and the embers die and the life-giving warmth fades and even the taste of smoke drifts away leaving my soul once again senseless and numb

Is even this brief coruscating incandescence this brief piercing happiness worth the soot stained, ash filled aftermath? of my pondering what it was I wanted and why it is I forgot desire creeping on me like shadows dispelled by the faint rising of the dawn returning stirred from this dreamless sleep

My memories wear with each remembrance trying to cram this lingering feeling into the stoppered bottle that is my soul each thought becoming smooth with frequent handling until each detail is pared down into oblivion and all that is left is non-descript stone sinking into the vast abyss of my burned-through heart plunging into deep chasms sight unseen leaving only trace ripples upon the still water faint waves like concentric circles of light or a whisper travelling through the rarified air each crest leaving me tremulous each trough like mute, tranquil despair until I am still again unmoving dreamless silent hope at last quelled smothered anesthetized as I prepare to face the waking world