Upon a meticulous street...

Upon a meticulous street where I hang
The opulence of my tread, the hollow presence of
Arms, faces, legs,
Racing to the nearest
Lodging of cultural death.
The pace of a child’s wait dependent on the morning
Is like the skin of consumption, tirelessly drawing
Upon the garrulous drips of early sun,
Under which my senses run.

And pausing by the roadside in earnest absence
My watch is checked, my head is lurched,
I’m obsessed with each moment’s step,
Direction pert,
And smarmy in the safer light,
Always tinkering by the weekday pool,
Half naked under half my attire,
Smelling the splash of weekend fire,
Then clearing my eyes of it all-

In two clicks of the railway tracks
My mind has filtered that which it stored
And drained the excess to the dregs,
Leaving a sobriety as equally thin
As it is overly fed,
As equally wrought as
It is bored,
Squeezed of the essence of ‘when?’
Pumped with the stink of ‘what for?’

O.J. Wilks