summer sun and bike races to the bar

Mad Ireland hurt you into poetry. – W.H. Auden

Childhood scared me into madness:
College is like wringing a wet rag,
my madness drips onto everything,

and music a valid escape
and skating a bloody scrape.

I see myself an old bent hag
(with wrinkly tattoos,
too many cats and rusting,
offending iron sculptures
amongst thorny, flowering weeds),
smiling and yelling at passersby
from the lip of my whiskey glass.