tramps like us

This is the mostly completed version of the poem I’ve been working on all summa. Tumblr keeps messing up my stanzas, so I’ve placed one of those obnoxious little swirly lines between each stanza….Without further ado: 

[a whistle in the black

awakes the pallid room,

its stubborn gloom,

shattering the illusion.

muscles moan,

shadows groan,

and i beg of gravity to fall.

i plead for the opiate dream,

until i slip away once more.]

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

oh step-worn cobblestones, oh familiar grime-filled crevices—

sing me to thy depths and cradle me beneath the feet of the restless wanderer

below the creaking park benches and their pondering, prodding inhabitants

among crumbling cellars and musty basements nestled in the knowing dirt

with the rusting grates, the cigarette butts, and the mush of the season.

~

oh meandering after-dark breeze , oh rustling leaves—

sing me through the watchful alley to alight on a drooping telephone line

where the crooked branches tangle with the fraying wires

and the invisible gas light ghosts hover above a heavy electric fug

as the droning traffic lights drudge through their drowsy ballet

~

oh stoic, creaking steeple, oh stale cement stairwell—

sing me to the quiet surface of the parking garage

where a solitary pickup truck sighs, forgotten for the night,

staring over the humble and clumsily patched quilt of faded rooftops,

all basking in the light of the one and only, strangely lonely moon.

~

oh tattered chain-link grid, oh lazy convenient store corner—

sing me down the slope that hides behind a gap in the fence,

sliding among the moss and silt, the trickling, lukewarm runoff,

to the ramshackle tarp shanties beneath a blanket of summer leaves,

tracing the indented trail carved by years of soot and spit from above.

~

oh seeping stone steps, oh night-blackened porthole—

sing me round the lazily unwinding ceiling fan,

where the jingling of tipsy keys in locks faintly echoes in the still

and cafe ghosts melt and blur with curling, yellowed pages

drifting lightly in the pale peach breeze of flowering trees

~

and then…

oh timidly tranquil, somber rain.

oh faintly gleaming, steaming pavement.

sing me.

oh sing me,

sing me please.

back to my slumbering, softly mumbling darling.

~

[the midnight wake of a lonesome train teasing her heavy curls,

her rhythmic breaths falling in line with sigh of the crying whistle]

~

to the sanguine silence.

the night before i left.

when she was still mine, and i

~

hers.