This is a rough draft of a poem I jotted down at Chuckles in Salt Lake City, a very empty bar.
Not being on the road
Walking the streets
Looking for anything -
This town is like a
Hand around your
Throat or a knee
In your chest -
Here where
The Great Ones
Hide in rented
Rooms, studios,
One room flats,
Doors baracaded
Against the living
Dead,
The sonambulists,
The mediocre,
The sad
Degenerates
Affraid of
Silences.
The Great Ones,
The Burning ones,
The Mad Ones withdraw
Into movie houses
Or video stores
Or write poems
On the vaulted ceilings
Of their Sistine skulls
Venture only to empty
Bars to drink away
The mediocrity
The empty eyes
The hallow chests
The thinness of the air
Knowing they are
Better than this
They rage over maps
Looking for a sign
Needing more
They dream
Of a
New
Jerusalem -
Elsewhere.
copyright c.a. leibow 2007
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