Lantern Restored Drunk in Oxford

Lantern Restored // Alexandra Fryman

Drunk in Oxford // Patrick J. McQuillan Am I as old as I am? Wayfaring on asphalt streets with a belly full of whisky, Blindly punching at the blind, With loose wrists and staggering steps, I ramble through the evening roads. The neon storefronts and golden streetlights Scream their luminosities into my skull. And I’m afraid of where I’m going And I’m not sure what I’m saying And the world has become an ether Whose haze is perplexingly permeant As I stumble through it drunk and blind, Asking meaningless questions in soft, incoherent mumbles out loud; In desperate, wild shouts in my brain. I’m looking at the world through a pane of old glass, Stained and scratched and raw, And itching my heels And bleeding tears from my eyes And wondering in this ocean of hours what could I have been? When did the sounds I’m hearing become random? Why have the days been longer than the nights? The stars are out The moon is rising I mumble strange words to the air And continue along the street And the neon storefronts and golden streetlights And the ether Into that void Until I can sleep long enough for the whiskey to wince away from my head. Until I can meet myself again in the morning.