The Shores of Las Vegas

I sit here,

lost in vagaries,

holding hope

and whiskey straight.

Daring fate,

or confrontation

to erase me.

 

From broken down buildings

on stricken roadways,

I had built

a house of shame

and I had wandered

far from anyone

who knew my name.

 

Junked out beggars

became my vicars

and the gutter my

baptismal font,

as I cursed the angels

and their sexy cousins

for making me feel again.

 

I poured out liquor for the dead

in the streets of nameless towns

and I broke laws

that had not been enforced

for centuries.

 

No one knew me.

I was a criminal,

I was disgraced,

I was disbarred;

excommunicated

by the way I loved her.

 

When I stood at the foot

of her grave,

I knew I would lose my mind.

When I walked off the edge of the earth,

no one would know.

I would find her in these bottles

and drag her out of my veins with time,

but I was seeking the ocean

from the shores of Las Vegas.

 

My long stare sees a thousand miles now,

for there is no horizon safe from my gaze.

The only thing that this world ever gave me,

it stole back again.

 

Now there are only bitter whispers

and broken glass,

and the rasp of my breath,

sucking back another cigarette

and flexing my hand around my gun.

 

There will never be another

baked tequila sunrise,

for the azure of her eyes

was replaced with ochre

and this world gained another enemy.

Another fantastic misanthrope.

 

Guardian revenant of desert trailers

and stray dogs

and gap-toothed hookers.

Finding a reason to live in the dirt

is only easy for seeds;

everything else here is dead.

 

Love sets on life like a hot mirage,

baking the hardpan

and setting off the fuses of my restraint.

Hell will come with the darkness

and heaven to meet it

and I will be there,

waiting to kill them both.

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