A cigarette butt and a candle stub,
Slivers of glass and a bone,
Run your tongue for the sake of a crumb
On the broken teeth of a comb.
Glints in the morning’s discoveries —
Litter from lead crystal beveled —
The sparkling decanter of yesterday’s revelries:
Leaden, recanting, disheveled.
No matter, no problem,
God, no more solemn
Promises wrung from one
Who never will atone;
From one-night stands — lovers strewn and outgrown —
Why stoop to what a martyr would scrub?
Pray to possessions, prey to what you own,
And whistle a tune to Beelzebub;
Or take to the road while Gregorians intone,
And grasp what the mendicant orders have known:
A cigarette butt and a candle stub,
Slivers of glass and a bone.