Shane Signorino
3 A.M. Holiday Vertigo Sketch Recollected
"The one climbing the stairs pauses from time to time to close his eyes in revery. Often, it is difficult to say whether what he saw, he saw with eyes open or closed. There are times too, when we all see far better with our eyes tightly shut."
-Charles Simic
Stove light's on and shadow poets scream
in crystal lithium time,
fire lights the pages of "The Prelude,"
words only read in insomnia's wake
& Leicester Square coffeebars.
Sandman croons of Kerouac's craft
& his spirit guide's a go-cart
while a two-string base reverberates
through December Monday's
palate-worthy ether.
On the telephone machine silence sings
in three rings before a cut short
of identification message;
Who's on the other end of the rubber string
coffee can mechanism?
Here at the kitchen table sits a one-time
abuser of Saturday catechism
now turned hypocrite plebeian,
a man hungry for candy
bars and warm bourbon.
He sees mumbling priests behind screens
afraid of the contours of naked face
listening to adolescent sins
of stealing ice cubes, touching skin
& soiled rosaries.
Brother Damon follows like Charlie Chaplin,
Las Vegas demigod with a rancid pancreas
bursting to be loved, to steal from Mother
he gathers bottom-feeder rocks
with ten bloody nails.
Tangled in the redolence of theatre sleep,
the hypocrite lost eight days to drink
wandering through fields of amethyst
with Belial whispering: "wake and stay, wake and stay."