The Shower, The Car

This must be the place

Stark white door with a modern handle

Guess I'll give it a knock

And see where the night might take me

"Oh come in, come in," he says

"Let's spin a Monkeys vinyl

and sip on chilled martinis"

Legs crossed in a postmodern room

We don't care much for the chic-

but he saw it in a magazine

and had to have it.

Plate glass windows

City lit bright

White-on-white

Sleek design

And this is how he lives.

I can't quite tell

What that painting's meant to be

Leaves interpretation

Up to me

Some blurry impressionist thing-

Maybe it means nothing.

Or maybe it means something to him

as he keeps talking.

"Oh, elegance-my excess

It keeps the haunting thoughts at bay

Someday all of this will vanish

All of this will slip away

and when I go - 

bury me with my money."

"Oh, the women I know

are dazzling in their dresses

Star-spangled in their excesses

all they want are my successes-

they're so easy to please."

I'd better find the door-

Like I had so long before

The monologue

Of that deadbeat fraud

still echoed through the hall

Readers of The Silent Page may have seen a rough draft of this poem from late 2024. This is the only surviving creative work to have come out of the period when my grandfather passed away in spring of '24. This revision finally gives it the level of polish it deserved. I hope you all enjoy.