Q: Rhombus falls apart

Rhombus Falls Apart

Lying in a bath of ennui
channels flick a thousand scenes
fragments of imaginary lives slide
across the screen
out of life
freed from reality
staccato gunfire punctuating
the boredom,
an adventure without counterpoint

freed for the night,
words laid down to rest
he sits in a bar
empty of friends.
Blue Marlboro smoke stings his eyes
in tandem with scotch in his throat
and his eyes drink in
the heady atmosphere

the girl in red who will one day
be found face down, naked in the Thames
laughs gaily pulling her blonde friend closer
to screech an order for a drink,
the bullet-headed footballer look-alike
twirls in exultant dance,
an echo of the fall he will make
blasted by an overdose
of a pharmaceutical product
yet to be invented.
The young soldier, on leave for the first time,
The last time,
scratches his close-cropped head
an inch from where the bullet will leave
spreading his brains
across the face
of the girl he will fail to save.
Rhombus drinks to the future before him
feeling the night's sex to come,
the roomful of hangovers
and the blows of the fights
not yet hinted at.
He counts the corpses before him
sorting then into the different deaths:
violent and non-violent,
accidental,
planned,
self-inflicted.

Stories unfolding enfold him
in borrowed pain,
a debt to be repaid with interest.
So he pulls his eyes from their sockets
and lights them with his Zippo
joining in the screams of the future.

Sightless, he moves through the crowd
to the exits,
freed from the knowledge he fears,
trailing unseen shadows
like a path of rose petals.
With maimed fingers,
burnt and twisted like an oak
blasted in the storm of realisation,
he grasps the brunette's face
pressing his lips to hers
and feels her tongue press between his teeth,
tasting of vodka and vomit.
It slides down his throat
To envelop his heart,
his lungs, his stomach
and lift him sweating into her mouth,
where she chews him for a moment
before swallowing to show her love.

Rhombus clicks off the television
offended by its silent blue screen
and kicking aside the empty bottles,
overturning the crowded ashtrays
stumbles sweating from the room
knowing his own future
to wake in the morning, face down
in his own hangover.