To the Wretched!

Here’s to the wretched! the awful and the stumbling
Who prowl our streets as most suck sleep into their pillows mumbling
They are the sick-stained remnants of ghostly buried youth
Who I will shame on office rocks attempting to sound couth
Yet I still crave the moonbeams, those light-fantastic duels
The knee-skin on the cobbles and the gentle crimson pools

And here is to the slut! that strapless, spindly ink
And cackles blue as the vodka, she drains to a glossy chink
Flung limbs connote salvation in fifteen minute slices
But knowing not her language I pamper other vices
Until in tearful reveries, I stalk, I stubbornly ache
And suffer passions mad and strange in that gaudy, perfumed wake

But mostly here’s to you dear friend, you terrible, stoic swine
Supping claret with the great and good, my my the greyness climes
This balance you speak of seems rich indeed – I almost dare not ask
But if life is such an adventure then, in whose light should one bask?