I stand as the drunks buy their killers
with soppy grins I refuse to match,
and they, lucid before sun’s peak,
wink and chat and mention children
I know to be doomed.

During day, the drunks are lying at home,
on the couch and to their wives,
counting backward to better times,
and neglecting to imagine worse times,
while my trade slows.

Cools in suits without ties,
or tools in ties without suits
pass without a glance at the storefront,
for their martinis are prepared, not mixed,
and the thought of a liquor store at noon is sobering.

Dirtier men, never women, with eyes bleary
wander on the side of Sunset,
but their paces grow straight before my eyes
as they know the filthy tiles I live on
as well as the concrete they sleep on.

Roaches, awake during day and alive at night,
crawl in with grim expressions,
only to light up at the sight of me.
They call me friend,
but I cannot but them the bottle to keep the title.

Sunset falls on Sunset
and the neon kills the starlight
I used to care for,
but now, I think the lurid lights
fit the people on whom it glares quite well.

A few morning drunks have returned at nights
to restock, as their wives have left,
only temporarily they say,
before calling them bitches and cunts
and leaving with illusions of grandeur.

Rarely does a charming woman
or a successful man enter the doors
as the clubs provide a social way
to lose themselves, as drinking alone
is no more dangerous but far less accepted.

I have no self-denial of self-pity,
and this keeps me from destruction
but does little to deliver me from solitude,
the comforting misery I know better
than any woman’s eyes.

Midnight passes without a notice,
but only the real worms are still out on a Monday.
While the gilded Strip’s noise fades,
what remains is painful and I hum Morning Has Broken,
only to have it murdered by the worst sounds of night.

When Sunset again plays host to dawn,
a role it plays only for postcards,
its roads are clear,
but my inside is not, instead filled with the vomit
of ten thousand nights playing witness to nothing.

The sun’s ascent has carried it over the hills,
and the manager sees it is fully Christmas Day.
He leaves lets the drunks buy a quick one,
pitying them on their first holiday alone.
He locks my doors and leaves,
allowing his face to kiss the cool winter sunlight,
while I stand in frigid darkness alone,
like all those once inside me.