from Hail Gazers #2
1 Come the cold, darkening afternoon, the Earth tilting the drinker toward his retirement, the folding travel armchair in the sunny yellow corner by the elongated arms of knitted winter shadow, taken backward and put into the box, the lid screwed back on the little Malt left. 2 You’re old enough to remember when licensed premises opened at eleven, and Punters, for reasons: terrain, inclemency, to louden the hush of Infinity, waited the opening of doors to quieten the heart in its hoody, pacing the roped, square ring, in the appalling, impossible trinity: Love, Fear, and Mystery; waited like fighters no one will take on: the younger among us remember the animal, Tyson, exploding from his career. A story about his pigeons; a panting blackness of tyger. 3 Bars at eleven was Ali, nothing clay about him, TV off at the PM, goodnight, basket cases, Kiwi, Cat, the ladder of Fact, far call left in the bottle. 4 Sleep now loads in a petrie dish, G, Hz, & .i, as a pod our Kind communicat...