Vinyl

Plush, upholstered booths

Shadow the slender silhouettes

Of red-lipped mysteries,

Breathing smoke out of velvet cigarettes

And sipping liquid sex appeal

As if they’d been paid to photograph

Black and white –

Their fingers muse along

The ashes of a dark morning,

Their gaze slipping between ice cubes of ecstasy,

And down the throat of a jaded bartender

Who’s seen too many candles burn out to the night –

They seemed to own the place.

Raspy melancholy wraps its thorns around their heels

Like a needle digs into vinyl;

Jukebox violins begin to play

From the mouth of a mechanical change-purse

As midnight men reveal their faces

Under dusty luck and charm

To find that tonight won’t end

In placid conversation.

Finely woven legs uncross

One by one,

Sinking their toes into the tapestries;

Red and gold tassels

Wake writhing

From the unmistakable caress

Of illusive grace.

Stroking secrets from beneath the concrete floor

Like the satin touch of working sensuality,

They tease the nape of each habitué,

Willing to tempt himself

Of more than the regular invitation.

Their spirits seemed to do the talking,
Their clamour seemed to do the smiling,

And with rose-stem heels

Untangled from the weary threads

Of seamless mosaics,

Coupled legs slip out of stillness

To sway in musical time.


Hazy in smoke-filled attraction,
Their casual seductions 

Begin to rise above the nightly lyrical,

Stirring a lucent mystery

From the comforts of her plush aesthetics

And the debris of lonely red-lipped filters.

With a raven curl rolling loosely down her cheek,

She dips into the carpeted ceramic

To lift the needle off the vinyl

She did not want to dance tonight.