Is it an old city
that wears black clothes
and grieves for it's soul
in the purplish grey light
that wakens winter's sad morning
and muddy shredded sleeping boots
hanging of benches by the river
I mean the tramps
and it cries through the eyes
of sick old haggard men
who sit on the steps
by the river
smoking Bugler
where water licks their shoes
and between bites of stale
yesterday pastries
they long for the love
they cannot get
and their dead mothers
and more "Mad Dog"
and me for
more beer
and this old city is a
grey mourning lady who cries too
and the hope in her arms
is a dead terrier
shrieking for life
from it's eyes
for the song of
horses hooves at night
and carriage wheels
and piano blues drifting out
windows to the
ears of the moon
for the ghosts of what
she dreamed of
not to be the
dreams of ghosts but what
she wanted them to
and this is the real blues
the unsung song
that no one has sang
that sings without lips
to the ships
and Algiers and
my emptiness and
a dawn that wants to
orange but can't
and I am slurped
out of my skull
a numb empty cranium
freshly pulled from
ill luck's
bag of crawfish
and my heart
is a faucet
that wants to cry
for this old city
that seems like
it wants to die.
