The Naked Troubadour

It’s Come to This [poem]

Posted on May 8, 2014 Updated on Mar 25, 2017

And so…
it’s come to this
[breathed with a sigh]
the bubble’s burst and piss and wind
come slyming out while temperance ladies
dressed as barkers curse and swig
from prick-shaped bottles mocking me —
their bodies wattled like some pagan crone
or crazed misandrist fart unhinged
[which rasps against my whiskered chin]
an ultrasonic intrauterine device
which thin girls wear at weekend parties
thus appearing more substantially built

And so…
it’s come to this
[grieved with a why]
a crumpled feathered hat in dirty white
sits down uncomfortably on the bloated head
of reason; and related but impure departed
shiny territorial distractions from the hologram
are making no(n)sense of the chicken wings
which, I’m hardly thrilled to say, report or whine,
my alter-ego’s stuff-which-is-the-opposite-of-shine
had marinated in a chili sauce imparting piquancy
to an otherwise mundane and severed veinless
quiche Lorraine (or wimpish {wussly} universe)

And so…
it’s come to this
[seized with a high]
I pack the few remaining items
in my empty whittled-down inventory
then I wrap them in a broken spotted cloth
(but not the one now crudely speckled with
my coughed-up blood or retched-out soul)
embarking on a know-not-wheresome road
enduring scoffs and crude I-told-you-so’s
and serve-you-right’s and just-what-you-deserve
if you had played your cards right (so they said) —
and not been such a scourge of blinkered minds

And so…
it’s come to this
[wreathed with the sky]
when is a roof no more a roof, said me
a travelling unravelling salesman peddling wares
worn inwardly and penfully with dreams
of dares and schemes and multi-themed
pentameters — some rusty, some decayed —
some still shining, though I sink into a quagmire
of dismay that years come down to nothing and
the millions of words instead of fanning flames
are crushing me to death beneath the weight
of longfulness and living’s messy evening dress

.
.
© Alan Morrison, 2014