In All The Crummy Little Barrooms of the Soul

I wait in all the crummy
little barrooms of the soul.
I look about and wait, and smell,
drink, and wait.
In the demi-world of honky-tonks,
which vie against night's
inner gloom, beneath mantles
of thick smoke, pinches,
slurred speech and propositions,
I leer drunkenly about,
swimming in the haze
of my heebie-jeebies.
I wait.
After the smoke clears away
and the honky-tonk tones die,
and the scraggy light of the
morning after spreads, mustily,
across the floor,
I wait.
After the hangover, fuzzy mouth,
after the aching head, glazed eyes,
belches, and specks
which move around in circles,
I see a different sort of light.
A flatter sort.
In the sordidness,
ergo filthy waxy sawdust on the floor,
I have seen a conjuration
which I sought.
But soon it disappears
and will not come again.
Illusion slips from mind
with lifting drunkenness
and break of sensibility
(five syllables of collective myth)
and pain creeps in which
is not merely physical.
Oh well.
I must try again tomorrow night.
There will always be another night.