The Vigil of the Broken Gin

In the dead of night, sadly I smoke
mourning a puddled bottle that reflects, in glass
the weak lamps flickering outside; my broken
gin licking the floor. That was my last.
I watch it from my pillows, bed unmade
as odious sobriety confirms unreasoned thoughts,

should I retire, try to sleep, harassed by thoughts?
In filtered cigarettes, I taste false smoke
and thinking clears; in clarity, dismayed
I stand in penance, epicenter of that glass
that bleeds my tonic; my medicine – the last
of my cure for life itself, I broke.

In mind and funds alike, I am self-broke,
so against myself, a war of will I wrought -
to drink what’s left, to sup the last
and let myself to sleep, sweet ashy smoke
floating within the gin slip on the glass –
I myself caught up in frenzies I have made.

The sun staggers through, I crouch dismayed
as it bleeds, observing, through the break
in those curtains I never close. Window glass
rattles accusingly; delirious I thought
it came to judge me; a Jury come to smoke
me out, away! and put an end to this at last –

– yet no. Prone inside my circled shards, the blast
freeze-framed in splinters, gin dried and made
dank stain upon my carpet; ashy ingrained smoke
the only thing remembering the breaking
of last night. My bed disheveled, I ought
to make it; move from my ring of glass.

I greet the day, curtains open, eyes of glass
stare aching at the morning. An end at last;
the sun bleaches away odious thoughts
of that torment that self-imposed I made –
rather than sleep, wait for sunbreak
bathe me in light, or sizzle me to smoke –

I inhale, smoke deep – my feet on glass
I broke as I ran hasty from my thoughts,
those lasting ones, that only pain has made.