Weather conditions not conducive to the sprouting of any seeds, time breathing shards of dry wind, but words once put down are locked into their sockets. They fall short of whatever it is that puts them there, but what's so interesting is precisely the one who is never expressed, that salty rim of life that comes up just at the edge of silence. The silent aftermath, just before the immense banality of journeying rises up again like a fetid tide and submerges all sense. For all your bitterness you've never been bitter enough to awaken it, to stab hard, once and for all, just in that momentary pause of withdrawal, that fleeting reserve, where endless vanity exposes its soft underbelly and which others see so much more clearly than you ever could. Dressed up in this life, even if it more than a little shabby, as if you had every right to step out on the stage, in the golden slanting light of an afternoon, and blow your bubbles, or whatever it is that you persist in doing with such doggish persistence.