i.

Indigo hints, windows hit with
squinting jets of ink closing in
on this hovel’s inhabitants
relinquish no pity, not when

even the incandescent wind
roars to glowing these messages
neoning crimson pathworkings
through mist, filling heads getting

bent into tubes of flesh twisted
by filth into advertisements
of lower lives more worth all this
chaos to end up living since

all the other alternatives
are colourless breaths no mouth wants.

                    ii.

A corner where rumours meet, these
eaves are where clouds gather to storm
the attics of our minds, collide
with our eyes as addicts do floors

when they crash from heights too skyward
to climb anymore. Ill-at-ease
from such stifling heat, lungs perform
misfortunes of choruses for

silences abhorred at the need,
the sighing seeking of god on
lips designed to be painted each
without shame where pain and tonight

borrow from tomorrow a peace
pleasure obliterates just right.

                    iii.

Nothing sounds as sweet once explained,
even rhythm, when consumed by
structures our songs evade, misses
its beats when meaning invades. Words

lose their power when lyrics lift
their refrains the way hijacked planes
scrape walls down to architecture
tall buildings, like tall tales, work hard

to contain, keep hidden away
from surgeons doing religion
as if mysticism were the same
as cutting open a prophet’s

sacred sayings, bleeding in vain
phrases of exhibitionists.