The Night Has Come Down

The night has come down, come down with a thud,
And the street erupts like an aftershock.
The noise, the neon, the clamoring mob
Are flying, flaming debris in my mind.
The taxi drivers rage at each other,
Pedestrians try to dodge their machines.
Bottles are breaking, transformed into knives,
Wildly brandished but tasting no blood;
Girlfriends calming the would-be combatants
For after all, it is only Tuesday.

The night’s going down, going down in flames,
And all around me invisibly burns.
The first warm night that we’ve had in a year
Though it may well be the death of us all.
My companions and I stagger along,
Bouncing-off the odd wall and each other:
Inebriated hydrogen atoms
Bar-hopping along the sun’s equator.
A voice in my head cries a warning but
I tuned that wet blanket out long ago.

The night’s falling down, falling down like me,
It’s all I can do to somehow avoid
The pools of vomit, the blood and the piss.
Someone stole my center of gravity,
And with the earth spinning ‘round so quickly
It’s becoming a chore to navigate.
As ramblers we ramble but all for naught,
Our way’s become irretrievably lost.
We had thought the darkness a trusted friend
But here we are now, marooned in the light.

The night has faded, faded like reason,
Daylight’s upon us like an accuser.
This is no way to begin a Wednesday,
This alley is no place to be at all.
Hours ago, I had though I hit bottom,
But as I said, that was hours ago.
The only shadows now well from within,
We twitch like wounded roaches unable
To escape from the sudden light switch dawn;
We simply groan and roll-over instead.