John-Ward Leighton

LISTENING TO THE HONKY TONK

Big Joe Duskinthe back beat and
WWOZ
right now it does in lieu
of sleep
which is an elusive entity
these days
because you can’t sleep
without dreams
and i don’t want the dreams
i’ve been having these last
several weeks

the dj girl
is doing her poetry
and i’ve hitched a ride
while the kettle
boils
for yet another coffee
and we rocket
down the freeway of words

she is off on a tangent
and i watch the parabola
of her flameout
to a place i’ve never been
as she is
headed for the medicine

the poem ends
and i’m in the arc of new song
and i’ve just dropped in
to see what condition
my condition is in
sick and tired
of
being sick and tired
and all the conditions
i’ve borrowed from the words
in my headphones

i don’t play anything
except this computer keyboard
and it’s hard to spell
in time to the beat
i get up and dance around
to the banjo music
still a white trash hillbilly
dancing in his gaunch
the king of nothing
the king of long ago raunch

the yellowing photos
in my album
and just about everybody
who is in the pictures are dead
and i hope as happy
as they appear in the photographs
no doubt i will soon be joining them
but not just right now
i still have some happiness
to wring out of this life
before i yellow
along with the rest
trying to do the right thing
that is my final test

the blues cowboy
is hammering his piano
while
he sweet talks a song from
nineteen hundred forty four
and I get up again
to get my coffee
and do the
honky tonk
again
i don’t know what’s happening
but here it comes again

bills to pay
should have been paid
yesterday
and the sirens scream
four to the bar
and then they stop
in an orgy of flashing light
something must be terribly wrong
with all that noise and smoke
whatever is happening sure ain’t right
and my coffee is a little too sweet
and don’t drink that wine sunny boy
swaying here on the keys
my feet can keep the beat
while my knees complain
i don’t know what it is
but here it comes again

gangsters in the strip bars
and five hundred dollar bj s
from the hos
dancing
spinning on their brass poles
twenty dollars bj’s
from the hos in the street
right below my window
now ain’t that neat
hardly time to spit
before they are smoking it
i don’t know what it is
but here it comes again

there must be a beginning
there must be a middle
and there must be an end
that’s the way it goes
and that’s the way it is my friend
so get the lowdown in the funk
and listen to
the honky tonk