filled with saints, heroes, beggars, madmen,
filled with banality and booze,
filled with rain and thunder and periods of drought,
a poem in a city at war,
a poem is a city asking a clock why,
a poem is a city burning,
a poem is a city under guns,
it's barbershops filled with cynical drunks,
a poem is a city where God rides naked through the streets like Lady Godiva,
where dogs bark at night, and
chase away the flag;
a poem is a city of poets,
most of them quite similar
and envious and bitter...
a poem is this city now,
50 miles from no where,
9:09 in the morning,
the taste of liquor and cigarettes,
no police, no lovers, walking the streets,
this poem, this city, closing its doors,
barricaded, almost empty,
mournful without tears,
aging without pity,
the hard rock mountains,
the ocean like a lavender flame,
a moon destitute of greatness,
a small music from broken windows,
a poem is a city, a poem is a nation, a poem is the world...
and now I stick this under glass
for the mad editor's scrutiny,
and night is elsewhere
and faint gray ladies stand in line,
dog follows dog to estuary,
the trumpets bring on gallows
as small men rant at things they cannot do.