Over time I shift
Major to minor tonality
From the storms that breached
And the rising sun while everyone's asleep
A bitter and caustic critique
Can be sung so sweetly
Between the folds in the sheets
Under a helmet at speed
Or late at night over a bottle of whiskey
With Sleepwalk on repeat
Funneled through a string of lights
The biting air and rising exhaust
The kindred spirits steadily lost
Comingled with the exhaled smoke
Perfume that reeks
Or the cedar chest opened with a creak
Full of worthless chaff
Childhood casts
Potentialities long past
When the sun comes up my inspiration fails
"Strain your wine and prove your wisdom; life is short; should hope be more? In the moment of our talking, envious time has ebb'd away."¹