The Liberating Ashtray
Cognition's final breath
Into the night
Of a thousand dreams,
Where you would throw
All bad memories
Out the painful door of lust,
Out the window of desire,
Into the nullified streets,
And call upon the head’s final role,
In this night’s terror
Between the evaporated sheets,
Of sweat and
The smell of victory,
Trampled upon by
This coming storm,
Holding onto your terraforming hands,
You coughed in dignity,
Putting out the last of your nicotine,
Inhaling the smoke
Off love’s last heaving;
Of stimulated breathing,
Of endless days
Sitting in the shade,
From the fierce dark winds,
Blowing your hair although covered,
With a felt hat,
And you wore a smoking jacket,
Filtering out,
The dying suction
Of a thousand tiny stars,
Pulling you to them,
Away from it all,
Into the finality of life’s rich
Pageantry of death,
Wrapped in a folding suitcase
Headed for Heaven’s gate,
Stinging the bee’s grave,
Embers from the last smoke
Burn in your memory,
Like his jumping mind’s thoughts,
Here to there,
Back again,
All tied to a string of incontinence;
An affectation controlled
Through a hole in your veneer,
Wearing thin,
And cracking,
With devices of betrayal,
Hitched up
With him, holding you close,
Waiting in the wind,
Seeing you there,
Smoking jacket in hand,
Worshiping him:
His longings, his kiss,
The purple majesties beyond
His frail thoughtful head,
Fragile,
Unlike yours,
Hardened from carbon monoxide,
And dreary from the insensitivity
Of last night’s embrace,
Near the fire,
The burning fire,
Welcoming fire,
Conflagration of numbness,
Peeling off your thin skin,
Revealing lungs of silver,
Gold with iron fillings,
To melt into cancer,
In time,
In time with the saddest,
Song of reckoning,
For the beckoning of heat,
To light the final cigarette,
And blow out a gust of smoke
While the birds
Look down and laugh at you;
While the worms
Crawl out of your
Skin.
