Brass Taps

By Joe Gardner

Gleaming of the brass bar taps
Shining
Like mirrors reflecting on memories
Of dreams long past
And shots of scotch knocked back

And the silence of inebriation
Is deafening
No comfort found in the constant ringing

Lurking now in the shadows
In the dark of the flickering
Candle’s light
Hiding in plain sight
Stalking refracted memories
Like Whitman’s Tyger
Prowling between the pews
In the ale houses of wasted youth
Trying to sort out
The grinning griffin riddles
Of the Gordian knots of disapproval

And now the knitting of the carefully
Woven webs of secrecy and duplicity
Are all coming undone

The end of carefully constructed constructions
To keep shielded away all the emotions
Falling to the wayside
Like New Year’s resolutions
Come the breaking of May
While I’m smoking soaking wet cigarettes