someone's shout become

an accent on elocution lip-reading

at the bar – 'is repetition still itself?'
gazing at the décor    a glass too tall

for its short straw    if faces trickle in

a peck on the cheek    in duplicate
and all slide    and the anodized

salvers shine like some pleasant hangover

from last century – way an ultra-violet
lit songlist catalogues nostalgia as a genre

self-portrait in the third person – smile

while the sunken lounge swallows me
then up and go with the flow gyrating down

light to guide us down our only sprung dance-floor

you left i was lost   guitar in his minefield
of effect pedals    this way to

those rare tickets    illicit lure of the cubicle

unspoken like here they know your order: two news
a regular fantasy    inched closer to a view    to

fissure in a cymbal rim   or tympanum    the law

packed lips of gum    their feel it a figure of speech
and a fait accompli historically the encore

applaud a first shadow    each to follow

late and later    forgot time    and danced on
into the death throes of a last, a final heroic outro.