I Am Eliot

On tomorrow's eve I stand and see:
dead night air and crystal skylines,
waiting for the breakers;
A box of Marlboros
(thank you for 50 years
of good times),
sits empty on the dresser.
Poker chips and faded chairs,
a memory, drifting through,
(the smell of coffee in the winter)
sifts through mottled thoughts
and shuffles in with dust,
the smoke, and the ashes.

Her hiss a whisper past my ears,
that faint calling -- recollect --
Nostalgia and bitter rum,
a cocktail full of voices
littered on the walls,
bleeding tarmac in the evening,
calling vagrants near and far --
The words she says:

"Walk through stale streets sipping
painted wine in search of
slowly burning time,
pavement blurs and smells of tar
and roadkill this evening everywhere,
dripping painted blood,
never burning in vain again."