There are slow moments when I am alone;
In the afternoon,
Sunlight pooling blurry gold on
The cheap mahogany (faux-wood, perhaps)
That I believe dying would be preferable
To a faint, broken-record rendition of
Not Now Soon Maybe
Half-Past Never.  

April is the cruelest month
And five o'clock is the day at its worst.
Little bits of me slide off like decay,
Start rotting
In the slant-light evening.  
Sometimes I close the blinds to keep it out.  
Other days I throw open the door

To wander through the onset of the night
Like a child caught among
Strangers.  
I walk through crowds and wear
The incoherence like a new coat,
Strut dissonance like a pair of shoes.
Show them off to identical eyes in an end-stopped world.

It's a little past five o'clock, now.

If I met the Buddha, I could kill him.  
And If I saw a God I'd fall upon my knees.  
Caressed by the King, I would beg for death.  
If you gave me the cups and swords,
I'd tell your fortune.  

Oh, I long for the touch of the Muse,
To be the first ring in the chain,
To hold the Mirror and the Mask
For the five o'clock sky to open,
Blind eternity and Lethe-rain.