"beggars"

"beggars"
written with an empty head by jake kilroy.

young men see themselves straightening their ties in the mirror,
digging out the buried treasure of their dilated pupils,
lashing their own breaths with hints of blood mary mix,
stirring up trouble in the great big ferris wheel world.
but slow motion doesn't make any night easier.

so a nostalgic film drains your heart like a dirty pool,
with sinking memories cluttering up the luxury of purity;
yeah, that's the hum of an american engine you hear dying
somewhere in a back-house garage, spitting black fumes;
yeah, your paperback life reads like a denim commercial
and all of your great loves were cocky quips that sparkled.

yeah, everyone read fitzgerald.
it was assigned reading,
back when your heart
first broke over your spine,
and every woman
was another chance
to wreck and ruin
and build and rebuild
until this empire
was just a garden of
muse statue tributes.

so whatever godlike poetry you wrote into the backyard ash,
you should claw for it until your nails are clogged with soot
and you can go back to bed to wait out another saturday
lounging in a bar, laughing, cheering, hoping, and conquering
the greatest challenge you ever mistook for love, freedom, art, and soul.

alas, it'll be truth and boredom that come for you late one evening,
slumped against each other like wayward drunks with antique pistols,
each with a pocket of bullets and a box of matches with your name
shimmering in the moonlight like a disposable tombstone,
and the final sound you'll hear is a click and the last laugh.