There is a papershred crescent over this sighing city the width of habit fingernails. And Mecca lies in those monochrome calender blots, skirmished hope for one more minute we can sit and wait for November to sink in, hastening that numb rain we've come to love. There was once a time he could measure his durability by the width of his wrists. And now its rewind mode, as the food-poison vine travels vertically up a dejected limb. We were promised a place in this somber-sweet symphony and now first chair struggles with all the others. The is no antidote to loneliness except ill hope. And cynics come like needles, penetrate the flesh. This won't scab over, I think. We're at a loss for words.