Down the back alley of an existence that should never have been thought, trickled streams of stale rain navigate over worn gravel, where they pass beneath rubber souls and disingenuous leather, mixing with the booze and the sewage and the piss, where glimmers of forget and hours of delayed regrets release silhouettes from a smoke filled room, inhaled through a splintered board, dangling by the fibers on the outside looking in a hole in the wall.
Laughter in bursts crowds dead air, as the shrills push and swirl behind force and tradition, no matter how drawn and undeserved they may be. A babbling rosy-cheeked orator squints and sways, toasting his own demise with a belly of joy and a grin peeled far back by blind illusions of happiness and respect, successes and points, truths and paychecks. Acquaintances stare in solidarity, as their blank faces erase self-indulgent thoughts, of screwing and soaring, beyond the orator, or the leaking ceiling or the piss or the bullshit, searching for their own prayers to be answered by their own Gods, whom tend solely to their own piss and shit, while they scream "Fuck God!" within.
Inevitability wades in the air, jumping from lips of passersby and newsboys, punishing sidewalks with repeated paths of late trots and obsessive stares at wristwatches of gifts, and wristwatches of bankroll. Pressure from time opens the cracks, breaking the manly successes of dried dirt mixed with water, where sprouts of reminder of the final dance and last appointment are ignored by "closed" signs and "will returns" battered and tested by swift winds carried through canals of windows, locks of bricks, and the will of the old man we've all come to know, cold and impatient, kicking us along like a can of soup, someday admired by the seeker whom treasures another man's trash and will not waver in the spit of a critic.
In the eye of the stream, where tires are busted and dreamers sleep in filth amongst cans of garbage and trash, trampled so relentlessly that it adheres to it's place, though it struggles to float away, a hypocrite bellows and judges, screaming for the attention of humanity, praising it's glory and it's tale.
The braggart accepts the fact of the matter, but refuses to knowledge what the matter was before he took credit for it's explanation, cursing all who question the latter, but he stretches higher into heaven, stacking a ladder on top of a soap box, balancing his act on stories of stilts, pivoting finally on thin pity and the merciful child, whom the braggart tossed a coin, though he relies to steady and overlooks, down upon the crowd who through him a coin, pondering the questions looked over without study and observed for the fate of a debt, a curse or a deal, sometimes for fame, and others for a warm meal.
Rats scurry along the canal, beaten with paddles, by paddies, into patties, they slide into panties, and sneak into parties, only to be greeted and festered by other rats, snickering and such, fitting into the traps of flames, or quakes, or the stakes and retribution, the loan sharks and long shots. In an instant they scatter from sirens, beatings, lashings, electrocution, hangings, sprayings, in an instant they scatter, chased off by loud buzzes, or loud hoofs, or sticks in the night, cracking over "leaves!" and leafs pleased to disperse.
Seeds fall then spread, then plant just like had a year prior, and will again in a year again, into soil rotten, by the spoils of victory, and the blood or the liquor, or tears, or the come from the years of strangers and seamen, floating into anything unknown, from one port to another; decades of silent communication amongst whores unfamiliar in but one place, itching to find the sailor who on the ground trotted, beating paths as they met others in the service, hoping to be serviced, as the brakes to the morning snap and fail, all sacrificed to find the nearest watering hole, where echos of laughter peer from dim lit rooms, filled with smoke and braggarts, and piss...
