BENZ FAIL

I've been down every gravelled tenfoot

The tyres on my car suffer terribly, in an acceptable way

Even the dead ends gave me hope

and I snickered, in snickets, at a maroon SLK doing a drive-by

Shaking the tears from my scathing eyes

further dampens the black walls and soaks the farce

Skin marks easily with rotten splinters from old floorboards

but slips just as simply into silk ...

Worn for existential helicopter rides around turquoise bays

that are as shallow and unrewarding as a soul can get

Achievement- I was taught to spell it at an early age

And midnight swims under a full moons light are observed, haphazardly

by the cool box perched upon the shore edge

It's label worn and putrid from the effort of icing it's own heart

I've rags from stolen skips and musty holes

and glimmers of hope and champagne within patched up cupboards

I've met them all and smiled, quite stiffly

in futile conversation and crudites for dipping

I sat with swans once, in a garden on the top of a building

Wallowing on the roof-top in hundreds worth of satin and beads and slap

watching rivers and bridges live and die

above worlds that cannot sleep or pray

The sky got my story that night, and a swan or three:

Of scraped, blue cheese and half-stale bread eaten upon thrones I couldn't afford

Of etiquette smiles and "How are you?" pleasantries

"Quite well thank you, I think

but there's not much doing here any more, never was"

My rucksack is ice bucket shaped

and the amuse bouche are warm and sweating

My seat remains empty at the obsessively laid table

as my heels are rooted to the bar

"Vodka madame?"

It's the only way forward in these circles

An SLK should always be black or silver

My shoes have fallen to the floor

SRWB 2010