upstairs padre's always been a big building absentee landlord...

manipulated photo by EJR ©

upstairs padre's always been a big building absentee landlord

(in this river city too, 
goddess says, 
steal into me 
because the poems 
have to wait 
until they're due)

last night the cab stand looked like it was in a field of 
masonic children/ I was drunk with bourbon and 
heady lager/ I took leave from the poems into the
bars/ they were filled with crisp jacketed 
fraternities and legions of their hangers-on/ 
remnant song parades and reasons for kept 
charades/ brownstones, quiet storefronts, churches 
and conclusions included foregone steeple chasing 
the paintability of blood between seams/ don't 
forget sir, they sew tales onto your life's story when 
you're gone, the barman says, as I head out into 
the din, dither and yellow sodium sorrow of modern 
street lighting/ the alleys offered solace in the 
dark/ places where I could lark to myself these 
vignettes and fantasies I have of her big asses/ all 
that I had in mind to peruse for awhile before 
morning began calling me home as I ambled with a 
sort of back and forth recitation of other poems and 
songs that didn't quite belong to my fingers yet...

EJR ©