the nowhere glow

by Peter Schwartz

        I'm a six foot shadow
        the death of rhyme
        an idea in a raincoat worming through the nights
        like gunshots
        
        a sequel to the magic
        a stretched immigrant
        mispronouncing the needle
        in an alley of the distant and lethal
        
        an elaborate servant
        playing chameleon by the garbage cans
        till the lowest man on the totem pole
        can truthfully be called king
        
        I will be him, undone by less than nothing
        a gutted actor fishing out his bones
        to fashion xylophones to play the night out 
        one note at a time
        
        an exile from the world 
        of the paper fed and puckered
        an injured guest of the daily minarets 
        that form like juries over marrow 
        
        an untouchable bloodline
        dying in the midst