MALACHAI AMONG the WANDERERS by John Horvath Jr

MALACHAI AMONG the WANDERERS

An old man sucks from the bottle of his ferment

at two brutishly before the meridian; he waits

for a muse to grab his groin, tremble him

into poetry but the lights glare

what comes

are the Wanderers

of too many colorless

dreams, blank screams

of thrashing limbs.

The Wanderers

shouldering large sacks

of things never done

in places unvisited,

chances not chanced.

He smells them,

crotches of wet

wet horses ridden

then stalled without care;

he does not care

where he sits

imprisoned

in flesh

barred by his bones.

What comes

are Wanderers

overdressed in

inaccurate gray,

pearls in their eyes,

moaning his mistakes.

He watches them

skirt through shadows

under the drapes of his lashes.

So many nights

So many nights

of vomited misuse.

So many nights

sharing his wine

with the Wanderers.

So many nights

studying the metrics

of never success,

the steady trickle

of his fluids running

down alley walls

into sewers.

He is dying

from his useless pointer

upward; from inside,

outward he is dying.

Another damned night

of endless failure

he spends

shallowly

gasping for words

to fill the void

of sleep time

sleepless