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.