Glass: A Journal of Poetry Volume One Issue Three
Streetlight Mantra
Poems and manifestoes scrawled on the sides of a urinal downtown
East river blues drifting gently across the South Congress Bridge
Swarm of bats unleashed to feast upon grub and flying gnats
Walls unmasked and stripped clean of thoughts and garbage
Bare skin, sweating, melancholy voices
Earth that stinks of peat and woe
Coffee, empty packs of cigarettes
And Stevie Ray singing on the radio twice a day, sometimes three or four times
Playing endlessly and still remaining somewhat meaningful
Though the voice is long dead and gone
I think of myself and see Gustave Courbet
Gripping locks of brown poet’s hair
Between fingers dirtied by paint
The desperate man
The desperate man
How unbelievably sweet it is to become truly lost
In a city you do not know
And can never hope to understand, so maybe you will see me here
Smoking crooked cigarettes under a slant of Texas rain in the moonlight