Breathing In This Decade

Between one breath and the next – at the edge
of something wonderful – what does it mean
to suck Salbutamol and feel a wedge
of solid air stuck in your throat? – unclean
as cat litter on carpets – as fag ash
stubbed out on a dinner plate – one fried egg
left cold and jaundiced – blinded by the trash
that is your lifestyle – you feel you should beg
for your next meal – the trolley’s squeaky wheel
annoys the waitress – wanton in her cap
and apron – laddered tights from each copped feel –
a pornographic cliché – life is crap
when your best hit is oxygen – no drug
is better sustenance than to drink dry
the very dugs of mother sky – to hug
her clouded bosom close – to spite the eye
that burns all day and winks at night – each star
a slut – all sparkle and cold distance – while
your lungs still lust for the husk of catarrh
in your voice – cyanosis paints your smile.

The Divine Miss M plays on your i-pod
as you jog around the park – your heart pounds
in time with show tunes – you feel close to God
and Glen Miller where the merry-go-rounds
and slides and swings stand empty – where each tree
is more than a device to hide your foot
prints – to render your life both carbon free
and serotonin rich – but when you put
your feet upon this cinder path and run
in circles – when the women walking dogs
don’t turn their heads – you lose what sense of fun
you once possessed – the running only bogs
you down with gravity and sweat – you kneel
in leaves and mud and clutch your ribs – it’s just
a stitch – you know a heart attack would feel
more like a metal band cinched tight – that rust
you taste is breakfast bile – the tracks that drum
in your headphones and fail to make you walk
now sound a tinny tsssk – they mark the sum
of your existence – not a bang but squawk.

Behind the solid world in which you live
your squalid life – there is pure vibration –
nothing else is pure – but you do not give
a fuck for theory – such complication
is mere distraction from the concrete walls
that further shield your flesh – you do not want
to be this soft – say everything is balls
and nothing breaks the surface – you warrant
more than weakness of thought process can grant –
more than bare belief can bear – so your hands
shake as they clasp at nothing and you can’t
ignore the nail marks on your palms – the sands
are shifting – your footprints fill the hour glass
as you lose your less than total recall
of a woman’s face – but still know her arse
was near perfect – though didn’t have the gall
to ask her name – nor even leave a tip –
yet suffer suffocation as the cost
of breathing in this decade – between lip
and bloodstream – more than oxygen is lost.