the world's a bunch of pink and white faces painted silver and gold, 
skins outgrowing souls, gnarled as inpatient fingernails
clipped by death as they grow old.

Beauty is fleeting; ugly moves in to stay,
mining cracks in the asphalt, bearing roots and twisted leaves
meaning well, being honest
smoking cigarettes and swearing
ladelling light-touched showtime beer soaked love
clumsily on one another:
sincerity is birthed in the dark, felt in the quiet
the shuddering and sobs and comforting
of generations sending off them and theirs 
slaying one another for these big, beautiful war-bond phrases
coined one bottle deep, a neck weighed down by regret
tied in loops for thirty pieces of silver, strewn
for all those open eyes left behind on beaches
that you'd never see on commercials.