my home of eternal night
lit not by moon or sun or stars
or anything at all of right
but this time there is hope
i can see it like light
glowing two years
maybe three
from now

The man with the trumpet
said it best:

“Welcome to Beale Street folks. If you
don’t get it here,
You’re better off
Without it”

florescent radioactive sugar poison
my tongue embraces you as though
you do not claim to be an earthworm
i’ll suck you sugar free before
you’re swallowed and your friends
are pursued in the same manner

i like to follow hearts
to wherever they go
’till they crash
in some firey mess
down the middle of the
street where i am
surely walking
like bogart.

on top of snake mountain
prayer flags wrapped on stones
raise hopes to false gods
friendship is discussed
basked in sunshine then
our knees rattle
the whole way home
taking us shaking
past restaurants serving
dog hoping they dont
beat them before they serve
them to soften the meat
with adrenaline as we’ve
heard
knowing snake mountain
is headless
as it failed to devour
the city

Walking Softly in the
House the King built.

Not that king, the other king,
and not that house, the other house.
Nope, not the hill,
on the corner,
just down the road from
The Daisy.

Strapping up,
plugging in,
click click click BANG

And then, there was Music

in the House that the King built.

The other king

Beat feet across
hard cement walks
and painted-on
crosswalks and
‘it’s only a half-mile
in to town’ becomes
‘we can almost see
the sign on the
Horizon’

But the cops have
nothing against
Three White Boys
on the east side
of Downtown
memphis

what is real and what is right,
i wish you’d sleep with me tonight
and appease this passing fantasy,
from which reason and thought do flee.

It’s colder than it should be but
not colder than I’m used to so
I wander through the city streets
and people point and laugh

And the smells and sounds are beautiful
But the wind cuts deep and scarcely I
have enough time to disappear
behind the safe enclosure of
yet another
Rib Joint

today, i am alive
at least
and
people are smiling
and laughing
whatever distances
you may blur
today, i am alive
at least.
damn the specifics
damn the sciences
damn it all
for my heart still
beats, today.

Careful as you go
Life runs unequal and dissonant across this street
the sky falls quietly on a skid row
taking ill-luck in its stride.
					

the cold of these pools
bring back nothing of
the sand bordered bath water sea
where we stood shifting
every hour to avoid the
sunshine beating our necks
into wallet grade leather

And I can hardly even
see straight and I can
hardly even tell that I’m
wobbling and I can hardly
fathom that my legs gave
out and I can hardly even
feel that I’m falling and I
can

Beside still waters,

Not just the kind on canvass

But storms we can’t calm.

i awoke to find
the toaster on
my bread all burned
my cereal stale and
my thoughts in a bind

to you i turned
i find i fail

Steely Dan humming on a stereo
somewhere, while we
lean back in our comfy chairs and
ponder, ever-cautiously

Three minds a-wander, way down field
without a place to run to while we
make a day less dreary while we
lean back, ever-ponderously

They said tonight was pouring rain
They said tomorrow, sunshine
I hear Wet on the windowpane
We hope the news was right this time