This evening,
there was a Carnival in my village,
a traveling fair for sweet, sweet sound of clinking coins,
purchased tickets, smiles to our partners over cotton candy.
What does it mean to you?
You might well ask:
it means the entire city is soaked,
in inexpensive booze...
Even the cloud-covered moon is wasted,
watching with its hazy eye.
When the city wins quiet again,
when the lights have dimmed, one by one
when city-folk straggle back to cars to homesteads, in their charming yards--
when the city wins quiet again...
I cast superstition aside,
and drive the streets of the city at night.
Though my light is closeted, now
caught from the energy of the storm that was the money-wrenching ride-fest--
my hope is in the silence,
the dreary eyes of men are closed for that price,
and I, a single man,
am awash with silent nothings
in the streets of Paradise city.
Even then, when I begin to see ghosts---
not only of the dead, but of the living, too
the ones inside my head after the lights go out---
I turn my car on the wet pavement,
buy some coffee from a gas station,
and sip at the heat from the living,
feel it bite into my flesh as it perspires:
perfect.
Then,
go home.
What would life be like
if all the streets were empty?
...If life were empty, too?
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