The Liberating Ashtray

                        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.