Untitled (for now)

A sweaty fevered boredom
Whispered prayers and mumbled songs
(Did I say that out loud? Is that okay?
No one cares.)
Through half-closed slats I see
the highway, almost,
and almost,
the water.
Warm summer Saturday night mischief
Novelty car horns and tricked-out bikes
Shouted taunts of fun and squeals of ecstasy
Silence here, almost
Just enough noise to bring out the silence:
A piece of sheet metal warps, bangs
Water thunders into nowhere
out of nowhere
Coughs and curses
The hum of some distant machinery
Muffled shouts through the vents or the windows–
Angry? Triumphant? Boasting? Defending?
Sweaty fever prayers
The need for a drug
The need to need the drug more than to have the drug
The need for sleep like the need for
a gun in a dark foxhole, surrounded
by unseen menace and whispered movement
Whispered prayer
The Lord’s and Hail Mary
“Our father who art in Heaven,
Hallowed be thy name…”
Fumbled words, out of order
Put the “evil” where the “temptation” belongs
Words that don’t matter
Memories
Unspecified, emotional
The nightly rituals of a child in darkness
The proclamations of a man in daylight
Repeat repeat repeat repeat repeat
Until the words are sleep
Sleeping, the words repeat themselves
Back to neon: “…pray for our
sinners, now and at the hour of our–“
–Sleep.
Neon again,
sweating like a wool blanket in July
Sweating like a 5-sided cube
atop a mound of seething flesh
Sweating like a light bulb that cannot dim

Out the window, through the slats
The highway roars on like sleepless America
Bright lights that cannot dim but only flash
intermittently
before they are– suddenly, it always seems —
empty and without purpose
Something to be put away or recycled
“…blessed is the fruit of thy womb…”

Words,
lacking meaning or substance
that isn’t gray and dark and veined with electricity
from nowhere
Into nowhere
“…deliver us from evil…”
The same sounds
Repeated and repeated and repeated
Emphasizing the same silence
The same sweaty boredom
Like bad attitudes and boring poems,
the tone never changes
Demands to be dealt with
with active verbs and passive stares

“…thy kingdom come, thy will be done,
on Earth, as it is in Heaven…”
In existence
someplace, always
the five-sided cube
All that is out must come in
To be digested, by force, if need be
Stare through the slats
at the life
at the night
at the life
at your walls
the walls behind you
Digest, in free will or forced
’til the fever takes hold of the words
in a sudden instant
“…now, and at the hour of our death. Amen.”