VOICES FROM THE FIRE:John Druge

After the Fury

Everyone remembers 

A suicide

Not everyone 

Remembers a life

This is the age of personal

Revolutions

This is the age 

Of tenuous togetherness

In isolation

Keyboard companions

In echo chambers 

Of hate and cancellation

Bold delusions

And enduring sounds

Of silence

In the aftermath

Of Truth

On the Edge of Town

I find my people

On the perimeter

In the shadows

And in the slick

Weed-beds of fear

As the lake grows dark

In the autumn

Under deep black hues

Of regret 

And remorse

For wasting 

The summer sun

And toasting 

The coming cold

With a cup 

Of molten sins

Like Hell’s doorman

Stumbling

In the blue hours 

Of morning

Skin Deep

Made over masses

Lost

In the fetishism

Of psychiatry with knives

Nips and tucks

And silicone dreams

The perfection of youth

In a bottle

Fat sucked

From the soul

Juvenescent elixirs

And outward journeys

To nowhere

Dreamscapes of delusion

And the slow

Winding down

Of wisdom

Into back alleys

Of emptiness