dinner party ‘conversation’

It has a haunting quality, does it not?
How shadows leave the table
when lights flicker on,
but their presence is constant
and reminded when birthday candles are blown out.
The way a sour aftertaste
an be remembered for days on end,
but the bittersweet taste of a stranger can
be forgotten by a drink or two?
If applicable to liqueur, there’s a burning.
The memories cascade like a film reel,
only rapid in pace as the mind tries
and places itself back at the dining table
conversation about the ethics of hunting foxes for the evening.
Clapperboards score dessert and infusions.
How first judgements of someone
are often the last,
no matter the alterations to their
costume or character development.
It seems being plagued
being reminiscent
are nose to nose in the mirror.

i read the bus board and saw cancelled

Don’t drive in the middle of the road.
Weathered soles can feel each cat eye,
these twenty-or-so old buses
weren’t made to carry this sort of weight.
Rubber hits some plastic and metal
yet for some reason bones rattle
more than the bottom deck’s bars.
Even with headphones, soundproof apparently,
a deep lugging headache from the exhaust
echoes into your indie pop song of the day.
It’s a sort of lullaby, sending you into
a middle ground of lucidity and psychosis.
Drowns out senselessness
but doesn’t bring out rationality either.
Don’t take the bus twice a week.
You’ll grow attached to the scent of
sick, i-love-yous, and
missing the bus by a second.