reading between the lines

wait!  had to do it right

on the house

sipping unknown wine

with dirt beneath my fingering nails

on the mark

but off the rails

reading Howl

and somehow

it fails to resonate

before the third glass

but after the fifth

there developed an impasse

between my pinwheel eyes and scatter brain,

thinking of the angelheaded hipsters

and the old lady spinsters,

trying to find their way home.

someone called near the end

and the phone ringing went unanswered,

so it was up to me to pretend

that everything made some shuddering sense,

even as i was being destroyed by 

a drunken midnight madness

while ironing my underwear in a lonely room,

imagining a copulating bride and groom

reading between the lines 

neatly arranged on the floor.