"as my ancestors watched me sleep"

"as my ancestors watched me sleep"
coming through electric after a holiday weekend by jake kilroy.

oh, the world was to rattle when i went to bed early on the sabbath,
with sleep that felt like dragging bones
through the wasteland of dreams,
and i in barely a bed for fallen king idols
that dampen the pillow with drool.

what lofty excuses the architects of youth knifed in the dartboard
while we drank poison that only thickened our skulls
and made us break out in hives when our backs broke in the hot sun.

this was the flood of the ancients,
mesmerizing and twirling for centuries,
coming for us with a bloodbath
that we'd try to stop with history books.
"no, fairest wreckers, this was not to be our demise, but our after-party,"
we'd choke out in a wrestling drunken stupor,
counting broken knuckles like prayer beads.

with patterns of sleep as stitched together as a patchwork quilt,
seizing the troubling depths of the watery grave i call guts,
i nailed spanish poetry to the weak walls of my eyes.
this was when my hands should have built heaven.
this was when my tongue should have tightened.

i can't recall the last day there wasn't a car race in my neck
with a heart playing as soundly and stupidly as a toy piano,
all so i can march through beach towns looking for a good taco
to call a last meal with wind in my hair and a grin that needs polishing.

so please let me know when the nomadic knights of my ancestors come,
for i have only begging to do and a store-bought quiche to put out.