Expiration

By Joe Gardner

The whole meat bag
is held together with scars and tattoos
Bones bound together with metal pins
Joints popping
Like campfire logs crackling
Vision going blurry in the right eye
Old twisted fingers bending back upon themselves
Watch the passage of time
By counting the spreading crow’s feet
And crooked broken teeth
so
With tattered soul
Hung out to dry on the Sunday clothesline
Strung up tight
Between the confines of my mind
I happily water board my emotions
With great vodka and methadone combinations
Trying to drown out the shouting voices
That haunt the empty spaces of forgotten times