Ode

I remember what they said
when we were not drunk,
or propping stools against
the same bar or even packing
our blunts in the same state
and speaking of states; in which
do their respective minds reside?
Pot-bellied pretender, moonstruck magpie;
throwing tilts in elliptical orbits,
barking edicts in stilted rants,
they long to eat the world and can’t-

only lettershapers, after all;
pointless pitons planted in argot,
they fall backwards off their own shoulders,
spilling vowels and consonants from
stuffed shirts and padded push-ups;
words without sentences hunt the air
between them at a loss for thought and
conversation brings us to this wasted place,
everything else being extinct
when we were not drunk,
propped against different bars,
stoned in other time-zones.
I remember what they said.