a light shines…
‘cross the street…
perhaps a reflection…

night is black…
no stars…
moon does not beam…

but that light…
glows…
radiates…

it gives comfort…
in the dark…
there can be comfort…

hope it’s real…

last year was warm…
Times Square…
75 on Christmas day…
the usual unusual…

listened to jazz…
pedestrians pillared…
people paid and played…
one amongst millions…lost…

t’was no longer Gotham…
no porn-a-plenty…
genius of poverty tossed aside…
Disney on ice…
good morning america…

your streets of needs…
kids applying trades..
derelicts deciphering…
tourists in awe…of what…
a flash in the pan…a $5 knish…

throngs of people going no-where…
wanting to be seen…
on large screens high above…
small sets in diners back home…

and now i sit in an orange glow of comfort…
away from razzle dazzle…
pixie dust thrown by fairies…
lambs slaughtered for all to see…

for it is in this moment…
in this hour of no needs…
there is peace…

shots fired…
sirens yell…
Midwest…
not immune…

yet inside…
a soul sings…
voices stopped…
solace….

i am found…

light shines…
an alley exposed…
winter’s left it’s mark…
and a cold wind blows…

homeboys dealin’ to hipsters…
snowflakes sparkle…
what you want…what you want…
something to ease the pain…

how much pain you got man…
you got bills you got pills you got chills…
bad as you want it to be…
that’s why you see me…

light shines…
an alley exposed…
winter’s left it’s mark…
and a cold wind blows…

whores stroll down the cracked concrete…
moon shines high above…
hey suga’…
you got me…

what you willin’ to spend…
a buck fin…
you want me boy…
always baby…

what you gots at home won’t give…
got nothin at home…
so it be…
that’s why you see me…

light shines…
an alley exposed…
winter’s left it’s mark…
and a cold wind blows…

give me your money motherfucker…
easy…O.K. O.K. …
how much you got…
nothin’…i got nothin’…

you white…
you got somethin’…
feel guilty…
that’s why you see me…

light shines…
an alley exposed…
winter’s left it’s mark…
and a cold wind blows…

shots ring out…
sirens sound….
another night…
in an american town…

you see which way he went…
no sir…
should be home in bed…
not in this part of town…

this is my part of town…
where the action goes down…
and i walk it’s streets each night…
never dreaming of suburban days…

light shines…
allley exposed…
winter’s left it’s mark…
and a cold wind blows…

alone….
good intentions….
tried and tried and tried….
for what…
a kiss…midnight embrace…supper at 6…

alone…
raking leaves in the fall is no-more….
let them scatter…pile high….let the colors die…
you never liked my technique…
wrong wrong wrong….is there a right way…

alone…
room rented…
bus taken…
strolls on cluttered sidewalks…
no-one ever picks up trash….

alone…
we are no-longer…
lunch-breaks taken years ago…
assembly line left behind…
forgot to punch the clock…

never earned vacation time….

and there was a small bird…speckled…on the window’s ledge…
wet from rain…moving it’s head nervously…
wings did not flutter…

asked where he’d been….
all over…,he replied…
me too…

have you seen the Great Wall of China…
told him no…
then you haven’t been all over…

i’ve been to Paris…
who hasn’t…,the bird scoffed….
both France and Texas…

I see…,he crowed…
what…
you over do it…

how…
the small Paris…
Texas….
yes…that would’ve been enough…

and i remember Donny in Joplin…a Vietnam vet who walked ’round the country with nothing but a change of clothes and some books in a canvass bag…Moby Dick….Leaves of Grass…Howl…. he’d read from each every day along with literature pulled from the shelves of the local library…sitting in the air-conditioned comfort reading the day away while american workerbees sold widgets…argued cases…took out kidneys…gathered garbage…Donny just read…

in the cool of summer’s evening we’d walk and get coffee ‘fore checking into the shelter at night….Brother Ron made it mandatory to take-in a sermon prior to getting a bed…showed-up just in time every night…just as the chapel doors were closing….but…our talks before the preaching was the real sermon….

haven’t had a drink in twenty years…, Donny told me one night…,had to quit…was gettin’ the best of me…, the wrinkeled Indian confessed…,made me crazy…that’s what booze does…makes you see things that aren’t there…

like what…

men…makes ya’ see men that ya’ think are sleepin’ with your girl on the sly…makes ya’ think your woman encouraged it…

that right…

was for me…came home from Nam an’ I didn’t have anything but an old trailer…barely heated up in Washington…by Spokane…trailer…an’ the books I got in my bag now…,the tanned-man lit a cigarette…always had  books…always…

yea…

yea…she didn’t read much…we just drank…just drank and screwed…neither one of us worked really….odd jobs here an’ there…get us by…

see…

got crazy though…she’d get tired of me an’ tell me to get outta the trailer for a while…tell me to go get more booze…or take a walk…go into town on errands…that’s when it started…

your suspicions…

yes…my suspicions…imagined men comin’ over…some paid for her love…others free…gifts…you know…diamond rings…bracelets…

you saw ’em…

no…never saw a man…a ring…no necklaces…nothin’…just knew…

what’dya do…

left….one night told her I was goin’ out for a bottle…never went back…haven’t had  a drink since…just packed this bag an’ started walkin’…

miss her…

the woman or the booze…

both…

nope…

peace…

yes…I have peace….

good Donny…

yea…come -on…we gotta a go a churchin’….

the shirt said it all…,STOP THE MESSIN’…GOD IS BLESSIN’….,worn by a mid-20’s black mom with a child screamin’ out in one arm and another tugging at her pants sayin’…,I’m hungry momma…I’m hungry…,while the young mother yells into a cellphone…,Nigga you best be gettin’ me’s mine’s money bitch….how I gonna’ feed these two boys motherfucker….how…,she didn’t cry…she didn’t ask…she told…

it’s the same problem everywhere…the clean have cut-off the filth from food…the mom was cut-off….the beggar in the street was cut-off…i was cut-off….what could one do…

jobs were scarce…money was always low…and addictions were high…some liked the pipe…others the bottle…for a lot it was sex…or the purchase of being with another body for a matter of minutes…knew guys who’d spend paychecks on whore after whore after whore in a matter of a few hours…just so they wouldn’t be alone….

my addiction was the road…the constant battle for travel…every week a different town…sleepin’ in shelters…burned-out cars…behind trash dumpsters at WalMart….didn’t care if i ever ate again…only wanted to always be moving from town to town to town…just keep me goin’ God was all i asked…

i’d left the clean behind…decided to go native in search of america….wanted to see the muck-n-the-mire…the guts squished-out in back alley brawls…longed to see america throwing-up in trashcans at 3 in the morning…i was never disappointed…

i’ve seen the work of the clean…i am a result of their deeds…

and i am thankful….

grateful to be a vagabond on the road to nowhere…no-longer cursing out people…corporations….politicians….why bother…i had america ahead of me…

who could ask for anything more….

you wanna see a culture….

stab it in the guts and watch it bleed….

and that’s what i did…..

these thoughts…
come-n-go…
end this…
give-up…

move…
‘nother town…
country…
heaven or hell…
just go…

wait…
tired of weight…
dreadful poetics…cliches…
too much…

life…
growth…wanting…
what…what…
something new….

yes…
something new…

you look-out onto far away lights…ballparks where kids play….parking lots for salesmen and secretaries…suburban homes with smells of meatloaf…jars of sauerkraut…whispers in the dark…

see these bridges over Potomac…Deleware…Ohio…boats afloat a murky water…roads traveled by vagabonds…truckers enroute from coast to coast…families in search of america…keep looking…

small town after small town…turning the jaded into romantics…thoughts of first springs…endless eves…a dew the next morn…what was her name…what was her name…

the haunting of nothing…to see nothing but black in this endless night…vision limited…

wait for sunlight…just wait…

been a long night…

‘m scared….

 

row house after row house….
colors preaching…purple hues…deep sage…olive…

tales of old…bought with new money…
wooden doors…brass antiquities….
this town….this town…

Irish bars….lads with brogues…whiskey distilled…
smells of fish and chips…malted vinegar…a gal with emerald eyes….
there’s a smile…

tis statues and monuments…
animals on recess…
hills to make you cry…
feet worn-out by mid-morn…

sounds of poverty…
can ya’ help ah’ brother out…
take home given to a woman of the streets…
that is all she’s been given…

and the dome shines on us all…
it shines….
it shines…