Empires, part 1

I


Scuffed boots burn in highway sun.
Moaning sirens wrap the night air.

I shall now leave you
O youthful empire:
so my memories can burn
wherein once I stood high.

II

I want to escape this routine, its broken
roadside, twenty four hour buffet--
starry mornings; blaring static sleep.
Its off-white walls,
white floors and
chalked up sensibilities.

I've become lost in the viscera; a cynic:
all teethless snarls and half smiles
all liquored up
to escape a place I don't live in,
dusty and autumn
like the problems I don't have
yet willing to share.

I've sured up all the money without me
to a smokey vagabond
in some ashen alleyway,
for a taste of pity
and the unshaven tang of resentment.
Like a quivering blade of grass
sharp on a dewy morning,
I stand ready for the scythe to mow.

III

I shall now leave you

like your fading reflection:
a mémoire of
forsaken summer days and
frenzied abandoned-lot haze.

I shall leave you
in the silhouette of lone townships;
in dusty puddles, born alongside alcohol
stained store walls.

Step by step; feet and thigh--
farewell my rusting empire
I toss your thorny crown:
it's sepal split and left to die.