Hunched and staring
on a bar seat,
splintered sounds skirmish
like football players
all round my head, all
round the room

roaring through the smoke
laughter and jukebox rock,
bodies erect, hold up heads like sails
fill up on beer
from heavy pint glasses.

A friend asks, “What are you thinking?”
but the truth is: nothing.

My eyes draw angles
from chair legs and table tops
to scratches and carvings
clashing colors, linear and flat,
planes coursing in fragments of light

my lenses drink
life as it rises to chaos,

collect, like two valley ponds
the leaves, dust, rain, and sun bolts
lured to their
pellucid surfaces,

corrupted and disturbed by
nothing more than time

the rhythmic clang
and splash
of living.