Anti-Epiphany

      I convalesce slowly out of dark Bogosian nightmare spinning voids of fevered startled sleep into the light library nighttime, clutching Howl between my fingers, and lulling closely to the table
      Cursing fate and Whitman's journey on the Styx, detached from my own head and not at rest, pulsating
      The voices of my family still are ringing in my cauterised clumsy ears, undone and undefeated but divine, I search the line between awake and sleeping for a fix, for
      Clarity, truth of coma dust on mantle grey enclosing rusted eyes without
      Burden, sunk in fields of stolen wheat on fire regretting and begetting sons who
      Call me out of life, arrest my hand, nail my bastard life to shreds of hard hope, the costs of small gains, and the lighting of fires in sordid slums;
      Cerebral suffrage succumbs to lobotomic trials of murder miles in suffering uncertain streets, denied smiles by celebrated sycophants
      And clawing inarticulate at gates of steel and lead before bursting into insane bloom, killing statues, raping public fountains, installing shrines to honour the acid dripping words of angry alcoholic tongues
      Coming hard subatomic, bombing forever down stolen roads, and speaking slowly the codewords of night
      Let it all burn