Sleepwalking

How do you live in such a mad world?

The perfume you breathe is made of crushed pearls

Where the red high-heeled shoes stalk the concrete

Card towers tilt to the drum of dead feet

The pigeons all watch from their gargoyle homes

As if they, the scavengers, see while they comb

All our garbage and stare at our bare listlessness

The streets full of strangers; our mindless existence

We all are the cat who walks by himself

With pride and long noses, our mirrors and shelves

All places alike and all places the same

Stories of how we once knew our own names

Which hat will you wear?  Which mask matches today?

Which sequined gown for the masquerade?

Where everybody dances like nobody cares

Sleepwalking, lips moving in irreverent prayer

How do you live in a world gone to the dogs?

Or to the mice that live hidden in drug-induced fogs

The roses have faded, the green leaves have all changed

Would that we all were hungry, blind or deranged

Perhaps we'd be searching or moving, instead

Of sleepwalking, tilting, just like we're all

Dead.