The Gatecrasher - Momus

He shows up at the party

In a pair of dark glasses

His grandfather wore

In the war

Saying nothing to no one

Just drinks

As if that's what God gave him

His ugly mouth for

And he doesn't make passes

At the girls in the corner

In their bolshevik glasses and black

When they giggle a little

And look at him funny

The gatecrasher only looks back

He takes in the faces

Never quite placing them

Squinting his shortsighted eyes

And each one reminds him of someone he's known

Or someone he faintly dislikes

And he can't understand

The naive curiosity

Forcing two strangers to talk

When language is always and everywhere language

And people are like cheese and chalk

Cheese and chalk

So he lifts himself out of his squatting position

And gets up for something to eat

But the ham is too pink

And the turkey is cardboard

And the plate

Is as floppy as meat

So he fills up his glass

From a bottle of vodka

Snatched from some new arrivals who stare

As he tips back his head

Like a man seized with laughter

And spits the drink into the fire

And he looks so appealing

With eyes like a bloodhound

And hair like the quatre cent coups

With the holes in his trousers

Designed to arouse us

He looks like he'd know what to do

On the rims of his eyes

There's a trace of infection

Or maybe the mark of a tear

And is it mascara

Or is it bacteria

There where the white

Where the whites disappears

And which of those girls

Isn't scared of him

And which of us isn't

The same

And maybe that's why

Of the four of them

No one remembers

The gatecrasher's name

Absentmindedly licking

The tip of a finger

He's just used for scratching his ear

He wrinkles his nose

At the taste of the wax

Which like him

Is acidic and sour

And just for a second

Something comes back to him

Something so real and remote

That he tips back his vodka

To blank out the thought

And he grins

As it scorches his throat

Maybe he thought of his mother

How she kicked out his father

When he'd pushed her around once too much

And how he'd pretended to sleep as she hugged him

And how he'd been calmed by her touch

Or he's sad with nostalgia

For a little Italian

He met in a bar

In Milan

As they swept up the glass on piazza fontana

He knew she'd be thinking

Of him

She'd be thinking

Of him

Or he wonders why Hitler

Liked lemon verbena

And whether he loved

Eva Braun

Or maybe he thinks

Of his cheap bed and breakfast

On the far side of town