New Orleans
(Previously Published: Lactuca #3 July, 1986; temm, August, 1990)
Look!
Dere go de Honey Dew Melon Man
Wit his sawed off clarinet.
He gonna shoot down some notes tonight,
Dat ain’t neva been shot befo’.
Me?
I’m at the gates of St. Peter and Bourbon,
Drunk and weavin’
Swingin’ in a wild comet ellipse around
A garbage can,
Facing a serious
King Kong dive to the pavement.
Trash Can Man, Trash Can Man,
Lawd I’m de Trash Can Man.
Hangin on for dear life…
Dear Lawd, I’m de Trash Can Man.
But the night,
It winces from a lone sax
Pourin’ out a molten stream of silver pain.
Like tears from the eyes of Gabriel
Drops rain down
To form small mercurial beads
In the dusty gutter.
Meanwhile
Over on Camp Street,
The bums are stacked
Like three dollar bills
Talkin junk yard cars,
Six bit wine,
And the bastards at Social Services.
Back on Bourbon,
Black kids tip tap
In tattered pants,
Gleaming shoes,
Eyes out for the cops,
While all around them
The machine gun fire of small change
Pings the pavement.
The Honey Dew Melon Man…,
He whips out his piece
And blows the night away.
Stars turn to ice,
And the moon ducks for cover,
While the asphalt rises and falls in rhythm,
A black, breathing snake.
And look!
Horses with hats man,
Horses with hats.
Gray ghosts of better days
Pulling big black carriages,
And small black men,
Who watch the world through
Frayed black hats
And yellow eyes.
Down at the docks,
Tiny waves toss the city lights
Back on themselves
Like Mardi Gras beads,
As river and levee
Kiss with opaque tongues.
And the night is quiet.
And the night is wild.
Smooth…
As the soft gulf breeze
That whispers, “Hurricane,”
To the summer trees.
Jazz
(Previously Published: Lactuca #3 July, 1986; temm, August, 1990)
I wish I was a bearded jazz musician
Playing to a bunch of drunks in a smoke filled room.
I’d moan out melifluous meloncholy
Till, heads shaking
Eyes deep in their drinks
They’d all see regret in the ice cubes,
And sorrow in the glass.
I wish I was a drunken play musician
Smoking to a bunch of jazz in a beard filled room.
Like Kerouac man,
Riding on a hot car blast off cross country cruise of sound
and light and words, down the black hole hollow tube
shaft space vastness of a saxaphone, past reefer regions of
crystal meth exploding stars, on out through the black blues
nothing of Mexico City Scag.
I wish I was a smoke bearded drunk
Jazzing to a bunch of musicians in a play filled room.
I’d pour it out hot
Like I was painting the walls with lava and brimstone.
I’d lay it down cool as the ice age
So beatniks and dinosaurs’d be shiverin in their boots.
I’d blow it so the wind’d be collectin unemployment
And the birds out lookin for work.
I’d blow so I’d really be
A bearded jazz musician
Playing to a bunch of drunks in a smoke filled room.
Bronx Break Dance
Previously published: In the Desert Sun Anthology1994)
She danced in the fumes of a beat to shit Buick
Beneath rattling rafters
In an empty Yankee Stadium lot.
Two street dogs watched,
Wild eyed
Chomping their matted fur.
