Sanity to Shame

Darkness thickens, turning chill to cold;
It's a 9 o'clock night, and I'm striding the street.
Figures hurry for homes, hearths and havens,
While headlights blaze into my soul,
Exposing hidden thoughts, silhouetting my existence,
But still, the night is young.
Nightclubs slowly awakening to the crush
Of fevered souls, seeking freedom from routine fetters.
Music, loud, throbbing, discordant,
Dulling the senses, drowning speech,
And myriad lights, casting shadows,
Lighting up halls, turning shabby walls
Into kaleidoscopes of colours.
The club pulses to the beat of humanity,
Trays of beer float across the floor,
Clouds of cigarette haze, cloying, choking,
Mingling with the ale-scent and perfume.
An intoxicating, heady incense of impure inhalation:
A device of dingy dens and dodgy dives;
And into this chapel of conflicting creeds,
Creep the wolves, hyenas and jackals, to prey.

Silently, a she-wolf slips onto a stool.
Warily, I watch and wait, immune I thought,
To her guile and wily ways.
Oh, what folly! So fast was my foolishness bettered
By her practised art, skilful, shrewd and sharp.
Deviously, her deft trickery defeated my defence,
Turning resolve to willingness, nay, a fervent desire.
A few rounds of subtle banter, a joke, a sweet, seductive smile,
A toying with words, innuendo and mischief,
Followed by a mutual bargain, playfully struck.
A short diversion through a rhythmic, sweating mass
Of dancing feet, glazed eyes and care-free mien.
All of a sudden, a cold chamber, a cheerless love-cell.
A pretentious attempt to prolong proceedings,
But urgency persists, a rapid rendezvous with passion,
Then emptiness, and an odd lack of satisfaction.
Normality returns, and with it, degradation and guilt.
A cursory consummation, a cataclysmic cycle:
From gin to sin, sin to sanity, sanity to shame, shame to gin.