Shrinking to fit, hiding in plain sight,
small-town niceties recycled to a point,
lower to a point, discarded as necessary
lighting off pretence uploaded to a tee.
A private table should deliver the goods,
garbled writing with a pen remains the same,
the infamy outside calls upon decorum
forever welcome as long as you pay.
Crowds disappear at the stroke of a biro,
a godly dissociation regales the strange,
another drink or stay of execution,
making no difference when sleeping alone.
The lines are too long, scissored for sanity,
the pen runs out of the least redeeming,
loving being loved, an addiction worth being,
choice of words sinking like rocks in water.
Last call before dying, a Faustian bargain,
feeling distant affection like a song,
repeated over soundwaves, loved so easily
refreshing drink sunk to a lonely charm.
The rich sleeping at another’s expense
antiquarian production a rebellious itch,
invented transgressions wheeled in for the bargain
feeding a crime no one could have noticed.