cisco sits bleeding

felony face
cuts down the alley
like a breeze
police sirens
sing the same name
as last night
darkness covers
the bloody footprints
of a young desperado
as he takes refuge
inside the gentlemen’s john
defunct Exxon
new address
for the dispossessed
a spider-cracked mirror
hides out-of-luck eyes
hard as Roman nails
bony back to the wall
he slips to the floor
laughing at nothing at all
shaky tones
fall into a full-blown hack
bell-cracked saxophone
bouncing death-rattle tones
round and round
the obscene sanctuary
top floor of hell
that smells
like a waiting room
for the cemetery
a young life fades
& slips away—madly backward

repetition of a blue bass line

take me to a place
where midnight accumulates
don’t want to see the sun anymore
put me on a train
with no windows
where nighttime lasts forever
& a speed-mad engineer
with a mechanical heart
highballs a coal-black engine
through time tunnels
like a bullet leaving a gun
where the speed of darkness
is faster than the speed of light
dreaming up a nocturnal scene
Mingus & Monk softly
behind a tan-skinned lady
with a white flower in her hair
singing “keeps on raining”

just give me things
I can depend on
red wind, old times
the repetition
of a blue bass line

forgotten songs

rotting shack
watched over
by three ceramic angels
casting cold eyes
over a weed-covered
yard of wrecked cars
& a black cat parked
under a front-porch swing
that dangles
like a hanged man
from a single chain

a derelict mockingbird
rests on the rusting frame
of a 1964 mustang
& sings forgotten songs
stolen from
an unknown bluesman
who once slept here
small truths falling
in slow 6/8 time
12-bar compositions
concerning
Louisiana hurricanes
with hellish ladies’ names
& skies
that won’t stop crying

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