The Forsaken

Sinners and Saints

of Second Street

shift restlessly and

knelt and prayed.

Heavenly Sun passed

behind thorny crowned

buildings downtown

on a slow baptismal

plunge into the river.

A double minded man

offered up dime stone

burnt offerings

to gods to foul 

have names.

Lost and blind

panhandlers shared

potluck dumpster

offerings and

screw top bottles

of wine

The mentally ill

on pharmaceutical fasts

had visions and

dreamt dreams.

A lonely angel

flapped her wings-

unhappily, impatiently-

and Jesus whispered

with Jackie Masons voice

in my ear.

I turned away

and Jackie shrugged,

hands deep in his pockets,

I turned my back

and Jesus wept.

Hope Erodes

A river runs
black and white
and red
and yellow.
A river runs,
with old men,
and young,
women and
children.
Flowing over
church steps,
into basements,
into souplines,
and flophouses.
They surge forward,
coarsing and rolling,
hungry and displaced.
A river runs
through the country,
through the Delta,
through the state.
A river and it's
thousands of tributaries
runs and flows
and hope erodes.

Who will bend backs
to change its course?

Who will build dams
to stop it?

Whistle

In her all alone time
she smiled
half crooked smiles
and whispered
his name aloud
sounding wicked
as red.
Sometimes thinking
back to the first
time she had seen him
whistling
a sad nameless tune.
She didn't exactly
teach Sunday school
but she prayed at night
and called Mother often
and kept teddy bears
and trinkets
and lived well.
Her high school
Knight had lost his shine
and most of his hair.
He sold cars
and watched television
and ate Tums.

Arianna's beauty
was unfaded.
She was like music
heard from far away
drawing you near.
Like Hamlin's rat
he came to her song.
He was the talk
of the big little town
they lived in,
and whenever the
old women mentioned him
they shook their heads
and made comparisons
to the Grandfather he'd
come to see whose
own grandfather
had fought the English
with his face painted blue
and sired the first
of their line to
come to America.

He sat on a park bench
drinking bourbon
from a paper sack
and felt a twinge of guilt
that he didn't like Scotch.
Listening to trains
and their slow
metered steps moving along
tracks quickening
to roaring din.
Lighting a smoke
he thought of her.
Something kind of close
to love, he smiled
then picked up
his ditty and whistling
headed out of town.

Capitol Mornings 14

The neck tied

shoe shined and

the lipsticked 

pantsuited

rush into days

grinding hours, 

past Quick-marts

and pawnshops

and Mexican restaurants

to grey and glass

office buildings

reaching head and shoulders 

towards a 

cotton candy sky.

RED

YELLOW

GREEN LIGHT

intersections crowded, 

used car lot specials 

and tool-laden pick-ups

and Mc Single moms

late for Mc Shifts

at Mc Dead-end jobs.

The sad-faced unshaven

wait with cardboard signs

and upturned palms;

gravel-voiced pleas

smell faintly

of yesterday's drink.

Little Rock stretches

and yawns and shakes herself awake;

and blowing on Turkish coffee too hot to drink, 

I bid her Good Morning and open my laptop waiting

for the day to write itself.