Labyrinth Stems

There's a tired soul in that sea.

Pinched and coddled among dense and voluptuous statuaries.

It's a hymnbook, a solemn prayer for the old, meandering drunks

wandering throughout streets and alleyways, partnering rodents inside of

dissipating stalls, bred for the upper-middle class filth.

A mistaken identity, tossed about with usury-enriched, blade-equipped,

paladins, smoking ancient roots while veiled inside of labyrinth stems.



It's the young men and their vindictive deportment that aids

this town in its venturing path, deeper and farther, slower into its convulsions.

Sliding, crashing into and out of the sands like petrified waifs

begging for a powdered handout; they are the sultans, the widespread,

the following recipients of a squandered nation, derelict and obtuse.

Older in their experiences, though, they will drink.

They will gaze and prospect the remotely cognizant streetwalkers

while biding and attending to the harlots of Easterly Plaza.

Their skin will crack and moan as they stand, unsettled,

screaming, and convulsing, sending dimwitted prayers towards

the clouded heavens, trusting that God or some other

omnipotent actuality would overhear their spiced apologies and readjust accordingly.

But, they are alone, dangling inside a stream of stars -

a vast expanse, speckled with loneliness and despair;

a never-ending pursuit of absolute redemption and restitution -

blinded by the gaping lights and patchwork sunshine.



Outside the windswept villa, a blanketed vagrant twiddles and thrashes.

The brown-bagged contents of his side spill and shatter, cascading the

spaces in between the cracked tile with a brown, spumous liquid.

He believes in Jesus.