Deep-Six

Girded now by promises

And the misguided concept

Of honor, he bears the fruit

Of dissatisfaction. Once

Proud, he swallows painfully

The pills of sweet uselessness.

Jettisoned over the pier

Of love, scraps of junk-yard cloth

House his ruined shoulders now,

Like soldiers of fortune dead

He drinks strong poison. He’s woken

From sleep, to deeper nightmares

Than his mind once conjured. Night

Once also lodged dreams of sweet

And thick texture, and brings now

Only shattered wants. The day

Intensates deprivation,

Deep-sixed by unsustained heat.