Issue 13, November 1997
Perry Thompson - Two Poems

All that he has chosen in his 
life has become unbearable.

His wife hears voices.  His
children are robots.

Mistakes grow 
too numerous to count.
He pleads with the devil,
curses those in power.

The metal moon insults him
as shoulders
slump in parking lots.
The dashboard is weeping.

Month's end and the money's gone.
At least the bills are paid. 

Comrades have taken to the hills,
their lives romantic and simple.
He drinks only one martini too many.
He's careful not to say too much.

All that he gave away in his
youth has mysteriously become desirable.
Old photographs in black and white 
make him blush.

Thirty years ago he kissed a girl
under the oak in Miller's Square.
He loved her so.
Where is she now?

Could Emma Lee Littlejohn
have been her name?

Photos in black and white.
One martini too many.

part one,
through the drinking moon. 

Through the drinking moon,
(glass night on wheels)
windshields streak with rain
on machines gone mad.

Through buildings pressed in earth,
(engines whirring in their roots)
television lines link
sadness to sadness.

Through heels that 
tap the midnight stroke,
(storefronts dark and helpless)
ragmen stumble on the boulevard.

Through spiked heavens,
(voices in the bones)
the climbing rain,
beggars rattle at metro gates.

Through the savage hour,
(the worm in the blood)
vertical darkness reaches
like a switch-blade to the moon.



part two,
the city's got soul. 

The city's got soul.
Music curls along the boulevard.
Through traffic noise the beat takes hold.
Black shoes click on Main.

It's 5 o'clock.
The doctor's not a doctor 
anymore and hurries from his door.
Women sit in windows advertising
love.   The patrolman knows
that certain cycles come.

The fat belly of jazz
shakes in the bellboy night.
Jazz is born in rooms like these
with curtains drawn and bloody
fingers pushing dawn back to heaven.

Come find him, Edna, where he leans
against the wall and listens with eyes shut. 

Come stand by the window with him
and hear the city whisper in telephone lines
all the nuthouse syntax..