The Poetry of Night

Slowly, the day
and it's cacophony
pass by, changing
to silence and
darkness in
uneven increments.
Finally,
grey steel and
beige concrete
become
less a cage
more
vestige of solitude.
The last shouts
and bravado
evaporate
as droplets of water
flee, steam from
a hot forgotten pan.
No more distorted
announcements,
chastening shouts,
or guards
final warnings.
The rhyming,
banging,
pecking,
of new urban music
on hold 'til tomorrow.
Unhiding
my contraband
cardboard desk
and lining up
sharpened bits
of pencils,
too short
to begin with.

Day Labor mornings...

are queasy stomachs,
and pounding heads,
and empty pockets,
and Oh, what a smell!
They are folding
metal chairs
and gaudily painted walls
with an ancient bulletin board,
its loose, yellow pages
barely hanging on.
A creaking swivel
office chair on
the other side
of the counter.

Day Labor mornings
are the hope for
cigarettes and a burger
at days end.
The chance of a bottle
to make the way straight.
They are poor whites,
and browns and blacks
crowded around a
filthy coffee urn
desperate in their
unrelenting itch
that must be daily scratched.

And to those left
sitting in uncomfortable,
unforgiving chairs
still at mid morning,
Day Labor is a huge
disappointment
that must be endured
and repeated each day.

Will I be lonely

still when
I am old
or will I
have grown
accustomed?

Will the company

of myself be

so familiar then 

that I will

be unafraid?

When my days

are spent

with yellowed pages

bent in gnarled

arthritic hands

and the nights

with old fool's dreams

of a family?

Will I know

what it is like

to have
poetic love
with someone
to share the beauty
of Grecian Urn?

Will I Know

the love of
silver haired muse
inspiring my
verse and my soul?
Will my lover
be old with me
when printed word

I barely can see

or will I

die alone

wasted to bone

with no love
to everyday wake.

Always Southern

I have always

been Southern,

though I was born

across the river

from St Louis

where my father

moved us

in tough times

so that he could

feed his family

of five.

I have been Southern,

always,

especially in the

big shouldered city

where I mopped down tar,

roofing along side my uncle,

as a young man.

Together
we were Southern
and drank
Jack Daniels whiskey
and whooped
and had fights
and carried pistols,

wrapped in our kerchiefs,

behind the truck seat.

I was a Child of the South

in California,
with great bearded bikers,
tattooed men astride
chrome and steel machines
and the tear dropped women
who came with them.

I was Southern of drawl and manner

in Indiana, and Iowa, and Idaho.

I would be much the same in
Munich, or Moscow, or on Mars.

I have always been Southern;

I could be nothing else.

all done

where did
you sleep
last night
baby

i am
all done

being
angry
and fresh
out of booze

so tell me
where did you
did you sleep
last night

i am done

drinking
and need
to sleep

so tell me
and i promise
to believe

where did you
sleep last night
baby

Fireworks

My muscles were

lean and tan

that summer between

seventh and eighth

grade.

I chopped cotton,

or rather

the weeds from it,

in the hot

Arkansas sun,

I worked to earn

money,for

the 4th of July

picnic, held each

year in town.

There would be

funnel cakes and

games with

stretched necked
soda bottles filled
with colored
water
as prizes, and
people would
be there
from miles around.
Her name was Becky,
she had
curly springs of
lemon frosting hair.
She smiled dimpled
and braces
sparkled in the
red and violet carnival
lights.
Walking and talking,
holding hands
laughing, blushing and
living in the moment.

Daylight submitted to dusk.

Our time drawing to close,
and leaning,
lips parting
I tasted my first
real kiss and, of course,

fireworks.

I have been overwhelmed...

in the last few weeks with kind words about my poems and writing. It is a small thing perhaps to you who have shared with me that you somehow enjoy what I do, but huge to me. I do not work much or often, neither do I date or socialize like I used to with friends. Nearly every moment of my days, and often my nights are consumed by snippets and phrases and words pushing their way out of me, shouting at me to escape to paper, and to have even a tiny bit of encouragement means so much. Thank you.

Hot

It was one of those Motels

that stayed in business as

a shadow of its former self,

with weekly rates and

dope deals, and a pool

that always sat dry.

The faceless, open coil

air conditioners would

freeze up, and blow hot,

if you dared try them

before it was dark.

If you wanted a phone

it was five more bucks.

The girls never got phones,

so they would run

back and forth to my room

calling tricks or dealers

or sometimes their kids

they left back home.

I would sit on the landing

in a near crippled chair

hoping a breeze would
come there and see me .

The neighbor came first

and I nodded

as he lit up a smoke.

He talked too much,

and used the girls,

and had a crappy green tattoo

of Jesus or Willie.

I never liked him but

it was hot and you can't

open the windows in those places.

Relative Value

 

under the bridge
a breeze blew up
and stirred the papers

where i had written
the words that i birthed
i don't own anything
i mean of any value
if i did i would
sell it drink it up

i have a twenty
year old van
that i live in
and get around

but last night

nearly sending them scattered
across the filthy parking lot

you would have thought
a thief came by
and tried to
steal my child

i grabbed and
reached spilling
my drink as
i caught them

what the hell

sitting in a doorway
downtown drinking
smelling like the bottom
side of a saddle
i smile wondering
what the hell
happened


i was pony boy
i was james fucking dean
i was johnny cash and
spun out steve mcqueen
i frown wondering
what the hell
happened

Forbidden Fruit

Eden was wonderful.

At first glance,

I only wanted to know

her, eternally.

She seemed careworn,

distracted, enveloped

by hurts past.

Her hair, dark and short,

framed her face

in a way that made her
goth black eyes huge.

She showed me her
paintings, and I knew
she felt deeply.

In bed, after,
she was all knees
and elbows and
my side of the bed

like a child who
has had bad dreams.
I loved her, but


she needed the pain.

Slipping Out My Window ( to Hear Jazz in the City )

The Jazz man
coaxes guitar string
bending notes
into balmy summer night.
Music enveloping
sweaty men and women.
Cool drinks in their hands,
limp lazy bodies pushed
close at the hips
swaying to and fro
hypnotized
like India's snake.


Brushes caress
high hat and snare.
Brass horns
wail at the moon.
Sitting outside
in an alley,
my back pressed tight
to the wall,


I listen.


I listen to the
language of sorrow,
to sounds of
unrestrained joy


My senses seduced by
improvisational play,
Tink Ka Tink Tink Tinking
of fat piano blues.
Mind racing,
keeping time with
circular riffs.


I fly with the jazz men
in dark glasses and porkpie hats,
run away with the jazz men,
take flight in myself-


my window
left open back home.

Lock Down

A Hershey's Dark Chocolate
Mack truck of a deputy
lumbers up a
single set of stairs,
clipboard in hand.
Her confection complexion
erupts in shiny beads
of sweat.
Mustache glissening
Dollar Store extensions
have as much in common with
the color and texture of
her own hair as
puppies and pyrotechnics.

"Fabor, Schaffer."

Flip Wilson's Gereldine
calls pairs of names
for head count.

"Jones, Johnson."

The monotonous list
seasoned with barked orders

"Look out noise!
What- you in love with one 'nother?"

Welding her authority
with the same awkward clumsiness
that she exhibited
climbing to the upper tier.
I wonder about her home life.
Her live in Man can't stay
long but swipes ten bucks
from her purse.

" ... guess y'all don' wont no
yard call,smokey isit is in here."

Perhaps Momma over fed
her, compensating.
No Dad around.

"Get off my doors!
Three steps back,
You don know me!"

Maybe little boys
made fun of a
chubby eight year old,
sing-song voices calling
'Fatty, Fatty two by four'

"Booth, wheres yo' I.D. ?
You got Twenty Four hours
lock down."

I don't care about her homelife
or her chidhood.
I hate that bitch.
I catch my rack and

roll another cigarette.

Uncle Tommy

 Uncle Tommy
 showed up
 in a different Cadillac
each Fourth of July.
His voice was
 a rock slide.
He smoked Winstons
and drank beer.
He came down
 from Chicago,
 and said Arkansas
 summers were
 too hot to fuck.
When he taught
us to play poker
I was 9 years old
and I wanted
to be him.
Years later
I went to work
for him
up North
and we drank
at a bar owned
by a Greek
named Sam.

The Tattoo

The tattoo
that I got
long ago,
faded now,
I can still feel
the scarring
of it's design.
The colors
dim
edges blurred
hardly
do I remember
why
I felt
compelled
to announce
to anyone
who saw me
shirtless
that you
were
mine forever.
Fat throwback
Sailor Jerry
letters pricked
into skin.
I touch it
tracing the path
of late night
artist's
staccato hand
thinking back
to your smiling
freckled face.
Eighteen
fresh from home
full of
expectation
and rebellion
ready to prove
yourself and
trust me.
You are long gone
now, but the
scar, and memory
remain, linger
as dust motes
float upward
in sunbeams
slashing a
motel comforter
and a yellowed
photograph of
that other time
when we were us
and two kids
walked
arm in arm
in sidewalk's
neon glow
ready
to take on
the world.

Distilled Destiny

If angels could disco
and demons could cry,
I'd lay down my bottle
without asking why

but fortune is fickle
as Damacles' sword
and humble menservants
will never be Lord.

When pigs are all Jewish
and Hindu's eat steak
then none of my nightmares
will keep me awake

but oceans are angry,
the sun sleeps in the west,
children will skin knees;
Moms hope they know best.

The fattest of freemen
are still prisoners of fate
so pour me a whiskey
before it's to late.

Joella turned tricks

before I met her
and only
sometimes after
like when she was
mad at me or
maybe herself.
we did dope together
at first but
eventually just drank,
such was our love.
her mother died
to soon, and
father was a monster.
he used her.
and his friends.
finally he set her
on fire with zippo
lighter fluid and
scarred her outside too.
we were hurt;
her as a child
me, less so, by
life and a bad
first marriage
we clung
to each other
like a cobweb
to an out of reach
corner,
such was our love.
we told each
other secrets,
drunk late at night,
sharing tears,
and  fears
and passions.
A fiery sunset
beautiful but
for a moment
then gone,

such was our love.

Communion

Greyhound fresh
with your blues shoes
and backpack
and back home Mama's tears
still  damp
on your cheek.


Sun magic outline
city block stare
bus stop aureole
glowing haloed girl
all flower fresh bloomed
and debit card and blood of the lamb.


Drifting up to you
gently as smoke,
vacating shadows
I take your burden
over my shoulder
all Lucky Strikes and grave dirt
and one third of the stars.


Melancholy moccasins
keeping time with
black, buckled beat boots
to Main Street Liquor
and four fifty pints
on a dirty grey blanket.


And sunset by the river
shoulder to shoulder
beneath celestial ceiling
we share
Pamplona, and Picasso and Paradise Lost
and potted meat.


Crossing our fingers
we fall in love
a little
for the briefest moment in time.


City scape illumination
reflected in
rushing waters
like Vincent's blurry stars.


At dawn
my boots back on
I will walk you again
to a bus stop pilgrimage
to anywhere next
but my quick broken heart
is rooted

to Downtown mornings here
and my favorite bars
on a sidewalked city street
named for Bill.

Non Omnis Moriar

Bury me beside gravel crossroads
tell Ol' Scratch I did him bad.
Bury me with pugilist dreams, yesterday's glory
bedtime stories with my children long ago
before life's trick.
Make my monument a chrome bar stool
split red vinyl seat.
Remember wandering soul: gypsy spirit,
the way I would have loved if only I had tried.
Gusting winds North, South, East,
winds of Wild West blowing
scraps of paper bursting with words,
the real me.
Surround my grave with untamed heart house wives,
other men's wives, secret crushes I never knew.
Johnny Cash eulogy on a come down Sunday morning.
Funny stories like Father's funeral
anecdotal evidence, never conquering the world
settling instead for a draw.
Let loose hillbilly howls, shoot guns into the air
and whiskey from the bottle,
someone dance naked  'round the fire but
don't tell Mother.
Pray to whatever god that you know
that I remain free of Hell or Valhalla.
Instead reaping whirlwinds, chasing horizons,
passing away as sunset.

Haiku

The poems that I write
are whiskey-straight-no chaser
burning throat and gut.

Second and Cross

On the corner of Second and Cross
on a brooding summer's day,
drunk Tammy curses and shouts,
her face a dried up apple framed
by jagged dirty hair, cut no doubt
by her hungover self. With a
deep raspy voice, she accuses
everyone else of ruining her life
then mumbles she just wants a dollar.
The base heads ignore her, or do
their best, and dope boys move a
few steps away. Bird is half hidden
behind a dumpster, the homeless
still have to go pee. Red comes up
pushing his bike. The tireless wheels
loud on asphalt covered in grit
and broken glass. A one eyed dog barks,
and Red talks to himself.
The rag picker clothes, filthy, are
accented with children's stickers
of smiling cartoons that Red has
never seen. At six o'clock, a cruiser
goes by, and the cop hands out hard
looks as citizens return to their cars.
The sweet sickly smell of reefer goes up,
as the sun sets on Second and Cross.