Small Talk

 

small-talk abounds here
nervous feet shifting, squirming.

If silence comes to the 
glass-littered wooden floor,
its power would threaten
the lubricated liars
fumbling
with their uncertainty revealed,
ears would cease to ring - 
intimacy coming to soon,
before the opaqueness of alcohol
could blur judgement

Those nursing empty glasses
their shaky voices unveiled
shrink back into lagered shells
the impetus of the primal beat
leaving their erotic impulse   uncertain
slips of the tongues hanging out,
reasoning an unwanted maggot
in the brain made manic...

an uneasy panic sets in, resident
of more sober surroundings
the sham of the late night ritual clear
 - there is no dancing here
only sorry romancing, muffled sounds
which hide conversation with
screaming small-talk 

on a Friday night
where no-one can hear you think
your pauses are neatly edited by
dense aural wallpaper covering
calls for another uncertain round
repeated in lazy-eyed earnest,
with silence left to pathetically butt in 
between driving beats and small talk
sounding the death of quietness