shillelagh law (joneal) wrote, @ 2008-04-01 15:09:00

Underbelly
It’s inside the echoes of asphalt footfalls
and raspy chants of street prophets,
the crackle and vacuum of trash can pyres
and chiming chorus of breaking glass.

It shapes within the rants of leather tramps
and pantomime of streetlight silhouettes,
in the grit of overturned ashtray sand,
and cigarette butt remnants
fossilizing in parking lot tar pits.

It’s in the strays, the spray painted
identities crying out from alley walls,
the vandalized stalls of dive bar shitters,
and the lonely numbers left like suicide notes.

It’s the essence of Bukowski and Baudelaire
entangled like two feral, urban dogs,
straining and clawing for one another’s throats.

It’s the beauty in the wretched,
the simple truth within the frailty of man,
the motif of melancholy,
the clarity of pain
and the intangible but irrefutable
allure of sorrow.

It’s the symphony in minor,
the requiem mass that moves us to tears
that we still play over and over again.

It’s the sickly sweet uncertainty in all tomorrows
and the voyeur at the tragedy
we loathe yet intimately comprehend.

It’s vampire fan clubs, snuff films and goth.
It’s the capacity crowd at the Grand Guignol.

A distinctly human condition-
taboos, secret shoeboxes, online alter egos
and locked closets.

It’s the underbelly in us all

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