Borrowed Buckley Hopes

--
A fine banquet on a dream table
cobbled from the dregs of love
the dregs of life an epic fable

O voice alone of alien chanter
rock my convalescent pulse
in heartbreak canter

break & run into gallop fun
before you shrink my age
before I grow my wrongs in rage

the long-lived echo of your death
rings the fool baton in hand
fueling virtue's isolation
to dream a second breath
--

I shoulda stayed at the trapset
holding down my backbeat gig

I should have rooted wilder
to dig at the limit & stay pretty

I should've stuck to my guns
given fair warning to let you know

I shoulda cut out in time
gone gone gone in a blaze of glory
--

We listen to the dead to listen for the dying
--who calling us out to call us in?

Stories told in hiding
as we fall out from love--
built up & spun out of questions

There is only silence after an answer
bubbles up from yeasty wine, bottled shut

We listen to the dying
to catch a message
from long-dead love

We listen hard & listen limp
to labels & categories made anew

We come alive to Death Metal Folk Music:
a flaming red horizon/that screams our name

(all is nothing but borrowed time
anyway-- a beggar's love
of stolen moments)
--