The man with the bottle,
Sharp as the razors edge,
Where blood runs thick
Along a shame felt tare.
Propped at the bar
With all those well worn lies,
Haunted by despair
Behind his comic mask.
Where are they now,
All those drinking friends?
Screams through the silence
Of the smoke filled air.
Quitting a conscience
In the bar stool dream.
Sitting on the fear
Of the empty glass.
Sweating through each pore,
Where no tear dare tread,
Just one for the road
And the morning after glow.
"So, hay, how's it going",
Still terminally bored?
While the tremors of the heart
Shake your hands alone.
You , "Guess there's a problem,",
"have you got an hour or two?"
Just a look in the mirror
Where the cracks show through.
Those wild staring eyes
Speak a thousand words,
Back to the "so what"s,
And a fractured mind.
Swallowing the feelings
With a wide-boy slur
,
And with each step taken
Staggers a dying man.
Too proud to let go
As he sinks in the mire.
When he's six foot deep
Will a tear then fall?
From the moaning corpse
Can a word still change,
The way it always was
But need not have been.
One word unsaid,
Lost deep down low,
The missing piece
From a childs jigsaw.
Hidden in the shadows
Beyond the veil of "because",
All that was needed
A cry for "help", that's all.
Reflected in the shattered looking glass
Of childhood memories,
The face that launched a thousand fears.
"Here's blood to your eye old boy."
It had nothing to do with the drink
And everything to do with denial;
Now where the dead man lies,
See the lily grows.