-Virgil and the Shrink

Virgil smokes over his eggs

Lighting one stick off another.

He mumbles in gallons of gall

And lines the yellowed walls

Of hell that now

Swells with his smoke and his embers.

“Hey Virg! What level of hell are we on?”

asks  the shrink

Virgil opens his terrible mouth

And pushes runny eggs in

“You can ‘get off’ on any floor

if you know what I mean

but for the record

this is the bottom .”

the eggs seemed to have legs

and squealed as they went down.

The shrink sinks in the gray mist

Coming from Virgil’s bellows-like lungs.

“Virg , come up here,

Virg, all my dogs have one head

and mild appetites.

Here there are sink holes

Tides that pull toe nails

Turning the feet away

Venus is fat and tattooed

With hate cooking on a grate

Fires burn everywhere

But none that warm

Food doesn’t fill

Lying in plastic bag coffins

Love is shrink-wrapped

And sent to another street

Nothing to covet, no one to envy

Just the whole fleet sinking

And the barking of the three headed dog.”

Virgil needs a shave

Virgil needs a slave

Virgil needs to rave

The shrink doesn’t get it

Hasn’t met it

And won’t pet the three slobbering heads

“Virgil you have to leave this place

The light is what we’re meant to chase.”

Came the voice of the woman

With the ring in her nose

And over her head

And a smell

That wasn’t perfume.

Virgil turns his back on the light

“I am from another time

before the forgiving brightness

of ‘happy-land’

the window with bent blinds dims

Virgil descends back to the bottom level

And the dog with three heads

Howls in harmony.

Joshua Kight 7/11/11