There Were Signs

The night was black, monotonous heat

No planets, no stars

He bandaged the bite

Unblinking, impassive

Undoubtedly getting off on the idea

That it added to his lore

And by lore I mean inflated ramblings 

Exchanged laterally between aging frat boys

Imagine how meaningless my life is

That I’m writing a poem about it

My feeling was, “This will be comical,”

But I also knew him decades ago

Unacquainted with disappointment

With the dispassion and fake self deprecation 

Of an older, more dishonest hypocrite

I couldn’t have imagined I would feel so sad

Watching him sink so low

All of this the kind of prelude to a fall 

To find meaning in later

So you can feel psychic, observant, whatever…

They say when a dog turns 

You see it in the eyes

When a person turns 

It’s more like you’re debating 

The metastasization of a tumor

Until arriving at a status of belief 

In the cancer’s reality 

Then prior moments stand out big and tragic 

In a linear regression 

Toward a vanishing point of disgust