when i almost finished this poem and just needed to add "a line of talk i've actually heard"

that
two-bulbed
lamp is like the world.

(i shouldn’t have been so quick
to change the dead bulb;
now,
instead of fizzling out together
-bringing intense absence of light-
they go out one at a time,
alone
and afraid
-piercing my eyes with half-lit shade-)

they always die alone. i have before.
and they are always afraid.
nous aurons toujours peur.
but they are audacious;
in the infinitesimal droplet of time
they have to light up some pocket of
the Universe,
they seek to burn brightly
and ring out the scent of luminescence.
terras irradient.

can you feel them emanating veracity?
can you taste the sweetness of vivacity?
can you smell the perspiration of velocity?

can you hear them screaming out their passions as they die?

(piper is a light bulb.
one day he will be swallowed
by old age and panglossian eyes and greed
and withhold all his colors
from your pupils,
-the lucifer of los angeles-
and play away his light, note by note, to the stars)

their light fades only because they die
and they die only because their incandescent souls have dimmed.

(sure enough, as I flicked the light on
later,
one bulb went out, cold as the sun
and I swear I heard it scream out its passions
as it cooled down,
its energy ebbing into the atmos.)