halcyon days

by Ross Vassilev

world full of
powerless, penniless
revolutionaries
screaming their ideas
onto paper
while serial killers
and outlaw bikers
roam California highways

disillusioned Trotskyites
feeding their hunger
on the stale bread
of frustration
while junkies sit in alleys
brains shredded
by LSD

a tear for the lost
is a wet brown leaf
in Autumn

those who know
sit in hot empty rooms
in the cancerous summer
tubes in their arms
pumping them full of
insanity
and stark raving loneliness

they sweat the blood
of the Gods
so remember them
as the sky fills with sulfur.