1.
Paint the body electric
hip hop bee bop –
O, let us sing the songs of ourselves
electric slide
run and hide
safe and sound
sunbathing beneath a blue sun
illuminated for the body
and the electric funk
born out of a need to dance
and a desire to stay
a little while longer.
2.
Let us go then, you and I
and wander silent empty streets
like drunkards, lovers, and reprobates.
Let us imagine ourselves ghosts
material immaterial
substance transubstantiated
wandering the bric-a-brac
counting the minutes of the witching hour
when even the cops have the sense
to go home and leave this place
to the rest of us that neither
need their rules nor
care to understand them.
3.
Counting down the hours til dawn
all the midnight shadows are drawn
in, tied up, and stowed away
in anticipation of an approaching day
that most people will not notice
because they're too busy
being respectable, worrying
about what shoes to wear
on Sunday morning and whether
the sermon will go long
making kick off
one more missed opportunity.
4.
The lines are drawing
themselves on my face –
deep lines around
the corners of my eyes
drawn around
the edges of my mouth.
They each tell a tale
geologic in proportion,
private in scale. The old men,
they like to remind me
I am still young. And while
I cannot argue
I cannot acquiesce
to their insistence
that it's all downhill
from here.
5.
This is the other side of night
that place Céline dreamed of
but never found; that steady peace
that comes with the meditation
of one painted line and the poetry
of coffee at 3 AM. Counting down
the hours til dawn and the cats are yowling
or maybe
just another bunch of bums
the cops will later blame
for various and unrelated petty thefts.