Within and Without

Oh you self-effacing vampire
Who on the wings of an obscure desire
Objects to this continued blood letting
And who from real-life situations
Writes letters to his head
And to the leaden-foot surveyors
Of the landscapes
Of all his yesterdays
Who thus surveyed find themselves falling
Short of making the grade
And in those discarded shoes
On these trees of tomorrow
You walk the old walk
To the gates of the last resort
Where cold comfort farms
The crops of discontent
Where the dogged and indeed
Voyeuristic tourists
Their Pavlovian wives by design sport
Report to their hormones
There in daily doses to drip
From lips silver service tainted
Drips that strain the stained skin
Of integrity, indelibly
Skin thus tattooed
Now barely spans the ignorant void
Between doing and thinking