John-Ward Leighton

USELESS

The crowds cheer deliriously
for the singers growing old before their eyes
and then listen as their dreams have disappeared
hoping to survive before the echo dies.

There was a white Buddha in the window
while a tramp advises me
on the best photo angle
before the mooch we both know was coming.

Lady Day from so far away
while poets sing the praises of the “Prez”
and dreams of Monk and Trane
sail easily through my brain as if propelled by the ice crusher machine.

I’m older than rock and roll
and the golden oldies have taken their toll
my racial kin have disappeared
and won’t appear again.

We are all yesterday’s men arrogant into the grave
although only the great and the neo clowns
can command a plot of burial ground
but know that even that will have to go when someone wants a new condo.

The crowd was sparse and aging fast
but poems are words and meant to last.
But faces change and disappear;
a mere blip in time on the universes passing light year.

How soon will some debris from the big bang
wipe the slate clean to start again?
Tourists yammering in some Asiatic tongue
drown out the sound track like the meteor that killed the dinosaurs.

I don’t recognize their faces
they come from other places
lard butted loud mouthed ignorants
parading around in gaudy toreador pants.

Young men who should pull up their droopy drawers
and a pretty woman dressed like many whores
has me forgetting what it was
I was thinking.

Oh well whatever it was
her sweet ass had me clueless and next to useless,
and just like the words remain the same
whispered or shouted, here they come again.

Ethnic boys wearing Canuck sweaters
yelling and making a fuss
but they only want to be like us
but I don’t understand the fuss

‘cause
it ain’t that great to be us.