Poetry

Altars

There are nights on which fast cars and curiosity carry us out to the edge of town just to see what is there.

I have stood on the ends of continents and stared out into a tranquil void.

On nights where we sit in wonder at the pointless beauty of our universe, we weep naked and alone trembling under the endless futility of our lives.

On these nights we are nothing.

Some nights we bunk the last train to World’s End, swigging from bottles to fuel our arrogance and fight off the weight of our own hopeless insignificance.

On these nights we forgive the world its petty indifference and blizzards of hope fall on our anxious heads.

On these nights we are nothing, and walk hours for somewhere to go.

Confusion and desperation pool in our eyes, and we are nothing.

Every night we are struck dumb by the weight of the breath in our chests.

We die every night and know we are nothing and are reborn.

These young souls walk dismal streets and fight with the mould of their squalid tenements.

They drink as if the world will end every night, and know for certain it will.

Beautiful young spirits who dance as if they know it will save them, and who offer mystic nonsensical poetry to each other like olive branches.

Who fought with their own egos in depraved bathroom cubicles and stared at each other with a renewed lack of recognition in the light of dawn.

Who rode trains through the first mist of day while the walls pulsed and danced around them.

They burned hashish and incense on the makeshift altars of the mind and danced with a primal glow.

They wrote lies on the insides of their eyelids and fought with philosophers in their dreams.

They bought confidence and empathy in small plastic bags and ran and hid at the first signs of morning.

On these nights the city breathes restless sighs over grey rooftops, and we are nothing.

Some nights we walk the seven haphazard hills, engulfed in smoke and pining for purpose.

On these nights we leave our words in the air and on the walls of plastic cubicles.

We leave our footprints, and we are nothing.

Alex Drobniewski

© 2014