pencils talk shop to fiery rap music in
this square classroom of oldster losers

while fallen angels shed their wings,
stumble like blacked-out drunks
on shrouded streets,

elegiac symbols smash and clang in way/
ward alleys, whistling in wind tunnels
we shred all logic,

and move our sullen hips and swollen feet
to a humid enticing Brazilian beat

in a torrid double-cross of ends and means,

you may well wonder when life’s looking
too close and a hell of a mess at three a.m.,

and you’re tangled up good over, in and
under those horrid unwashed sheets,

must we bumble along from stem to stern
as bees on the buzz or crooks on the lam

just to make some honey or a wad of money
in our one last sweet shot to feel complete?