The Stillness

The Stillness                                                                         

holy crap, the world's gone mute,

the kind of quiet you find in a drunk's coat pocket,

where dreams and loose change mix it up

and the lint-encrusted condom from '21

is a monument to what never happened.

the night's tongues are wagging all hush-hush,

while the souls collapse into couch cushions,

wrapping themselves in the cradle of dead air,

like the void's some kind of velvet teddy bear 

they can hug when the screams get too loud inside.

they talk about eden, the eternal nap spot,

where the worms do the tango and the apples rot,

lying there, a snoring pile of bones,

in the kind of rest that only a tombstone understands.

it's a fade-out, not a swan song,

slinking into the shadows where the crazies can't find you,

the stars poking holes in the sky like some dumbass kids

with a BB gun, taking potshots at the streetlights,

keeping watch until the sun staggers back into the sky,

hung over and begging for another hour of shuteye.