It took place

in an amnesiac haze and fury,

numberless nights

of lightningspeak and opiate rabble,

rocketfuel and anti-freeze,

bright slashing ribbons

of noise amounting to worry stones

indenting the infantpink tender of palms,

forecasting God as a vaudeville dunce

with a heart of gold, or succubus with cherry cola hips

 and scarlet stigmata,

on and on and on the show went,

fugitive motion and tensions

arrested in space,

rooftop calisthenics

and balcony-blown jigs (clothing

and skin optional), hell’s bells

and aeronautic scarves of silk

modeled by the slinksexy fox, Lana de Sade,

and Heaven’s 24-7

bodegas foil-wrapping promises

to go,

on and on and on, a mythical riot,

a Saturnalian blast and romp that flirted with

stratosphere, pecked at the cirrus lips of ether,

slapped and pinched dreamcake-angel-bums,

and then, remembering themselves to earth,

the plummet,

wasted, deprived, the worn-out edges

of a faded post-script,

faring traceless amens.

It couldn’t last. Life isn’t built that way.

And dreams, beautiful ghosts that they are,

must pass, returning to the sea

as babbling stitches of foam,

hemming clouds to waves

and Venus to air.