He stood alone, a stoic observer
in the midst of the maelstrom,
deaf to the cacophony,
bathed in a golden silence.
This was not a gin dream, he
had let go of alcohol and drugs
for they crowded his thoughts,
forced them into places he
never wanted to be, his dreams
once his holy salvation and he
a penitent to Saint Morpheus, who
promised him freedom, only
to return him to his cell come dawn.
In the dim starlight he could
step outside of the pulsing
music of his heart, his fierceness
could melt away as the universe
looked on dispassionately at him,
a would-be-god on the edge of mortality.