Alexandria

I smoked a hookah with you
While we watched the library burn down
The blaze illuminated your face
As every word burnt into space
Then with two tongs of tusk
I plucked an ember from our tin and threw it in
'Specting to add aroma to the crackle of the din
When the pigs came along and locked me up
For starting the whole thing!
In a day and a half I was back out on the streets.
Was it just a plea for my release
When I took credit for the feats?


Suisliding Home on Battlefield Road

King Pigeon of Queen’s Park
From humble squabbings in Lanark
Reigns bold as a kestrel, large as a lark!
On a feu the Regent of Morey marked
Tread now by only the backle of the Laird of Cathcairn,
Pauper of Cathcart
Who thinks on a flapjack while he sips on it dark
“My crag in Caithness, wee as a wink, divvied down through generations
In as many wills as any elder can think,
(And frankly, midden as the dram that swam upstream
From Dunfermline’s stomach to its sink)
Would suit you robust beastie, appetite so feastie,
As well and uncontested as any perch in this city,
‘Cause no one wins here ‘cept Despair.
Neither Victoria nor Mary, Queen of Scots,
Can claim the dedication of this lot.
Our heroine has yet to arrive
And seeing as the age of them has come and gone,
She’s not survived.
Beat it! Out of here with those wings!
Or I’ll turn my contempt upon you for ignoring better things --
Like the neds in need nightly running me up the street;
I read between the lines, I know what they mean.
Beat it I said! There’s a sea beyond this!”
I thumped on the earth, threw a stick intending to miss
But as Glasgow persists, the unclouted King maintained his wits.
He shuffled skiffle and I withdrew, but call it quits?
I will never do.


When the cult urban Rapturist Rockwell asked me to write the liner notes for his "Freeplay" release I entered his world through www.millionstories.com careful to always shadow myself behind free standing gothic butresses or twitch and caw like a madman as to ward the truly mad away. Exhausted by the charade posing as naked bones posing as charade I caught a nip at a place called "The Bowery Bedoin's Boudoir" and a poet named Neverest slipped me these notes on a gin soaked doily:

Save Rockwell!

Save Rockwell! He's undersiege by droves of Khakis, some in pleats
Whose coat of arms is the Indonesian Guatamalan breakfast seed.
They're driving him crazy!
They've overrun Miladies!
This City's silent succumbing's more sinful than
Haiti's Hades!

In his palace he resees when the roadside repertoir was the repartee of homies
Not just the dwindling "ho" hollering of Christopher Street's homomies
Who even they, losing their gay
Will be leaving any day
-- With this encroachin' Hoboken
It seems impossible to stay.
But this is not Versaille, this is Marseille
Built upon the dirty word, trade –
We know when they drudge the harbor what'll turn up in the waste
And more importantly, won't they the Leviathan awake?
We have reached the precipice and now await the break.
So hurry up and meet Rockwell!
In exchange for this freeplay he asks only for a drink and if you sock him in the gut with the goad
"This one's for the City"
He'll appreciate how you think


Keep moving!