His whiskey legs, like pistons,
Punch the heaving city streets.
And splashing through the noise and rush,
He reaches out to meet,
A rolly, dangling from his lip
splits smoke escaping as it lingers;
Ringing ‘round his withered wrist,
It slips between his fragile fingers,
Waiting arched like spiders legs;
Poised to pinch it from his bite,
‘fore it drops from drooping jaw,
That hangs aghast in false delight;
At delirious reflections,
That deceive in shop displays.
His ferocious form is famed,
His haggard cheeks all gone adaze.
And with pumped up chest and chin,
He grips his precious moment tight;
And strains to hold his lie within;
Yet, as if it all to spite,
He sees himself, each sorry choice,
As waypoints gone adrift;
Untethered now they dance in flight,
Like embers dying as they lift.
And weakening; his chest relents,
It cracks and bends to pull the spine.
Wherein his breath obliterates;
The fantasy sublime.
His mind; unpaused onto to street.
Again the city grinds.
And steadying, he takes a drag.
Two steps to fall in time.
A Cracked Thing