Concern

A plotted life dragged through
seen on the tooth of a smile at those
perhaps-mahogany parties. The canapes
ache boredom; the light fittings
leak taste. I leave
and run through rain streets, receiving
nighthood recently and proud, and cloudy,
while unfocussed eyes shatter those
tidy domestic ambers roadside hung
in celebration – and past which I dash myself;
the passing city

a map as confused as I am,
and the spaghetti of feelings, and thoughts,
and the aching canape I eat
every last day

The guests and I are smalltalking another
tooth of red wine – and once again
I’ve seen myself the foreground character
in a rapidly flawing romantic painting

what am I escaping? I keep
building boredom into
antill truths; chalkboard cadent
resolutions; a comprehensive key
to the ordinance of existence -
the soldier of reason recruited; a keep
already fallen, like so many
snowflaking solutions
with its logic already looted.