BACCHANAL YELLS

you spent the night shouting (drunken
stranger rageful words, like
cylinders of bitter beer in nonexistant stereotype cans --
words that were empty except for the obvious load they carried --
commands, bravado, hollow epithets, you
made me hate you a bit, instinctively
was there in that some subconscious aim?
I appreciated the rawblunt evokation in the drama
Michelle, get over here, RIGHT NOW!
I hate everything!
over and over and over
you kept us awake, while lighthouses swept mad sabers of light,
and ocean waters roared their delirious whispers
your friends sang the songs of second-time college drunks,
amused by their own petty vulgarities, on a Green Man guitar --
how many shouted responses my head held! I don't know
go home and off yourself
leave the damn girl alone
ohgodjustshutup
then brokenly you sobbed that your daughter had died in your arms
well,
I thought,
damn, that's a hell of an issue
you were the raging demented asshole of the night,
but suddenly we were bound:
by my strange little golden child, whom I fear horribly to lose,
and by yours, whom you lost already.
Though I already felt I had no right to criticize
for the Dionysian revelations and Abriaxian purgative darkness I've long
wished for in others, that desolate fragment
gave me pause
and I surrendered the night to your new-ancient
foolish
Human yells.