20 league intervals between the wasteland and this ghost town

To Louis Armstrong.

Keep spinning on dimes
While-those quarters waltz across the table
I watch you getting dizzy turning
for some quick loose change
spun down since I snatch the coins away
from the edges-where you'll catch them to claim

Cause I don’t have the time to-
make contact or contracts,
just enough of the night to rest and observe
your disarray on public display
with no promise of purpose-
amendments and common senses-
accompanied yes-but even when we're in the room
you're alone, truly-

still in this thick black coffee slick
while all my three vices get drowned out
in your nasty static-viscious
flooding quick caffeine rushes
nicotine tempest

I turn a cold shoulder to
rush off this hot temper
sometimes I can't help but stab so deep
from back through breast
wounds wrought by hesitance and neglect,
that tip the point off easy-
give it a good twist to be
stuck without a means

one lonely ember glowing in the
ashes among the discussions of fiends-
writing novels with a petrol ink torchpen
In a library of matchbooks
Observing eager strikers that fidget while
Flirting with fireflies and hot headed femmes
They sick the other girls
they get them-

I get lifted up and passed over to the stage with a red mark across my eye
they get taken downunder with a little lie and another mutter
Say something! We need a word tonight!
Sliding my hands over my face to hide the signs I can’t disguise
these people make me nervous in their asphyxiate atmosphere-
Above and among the obsessed, the oppressed, and the elected neglected
the old and condemned-the young and unsuspecting,

Why map out a place for me in your country of weak will
don't get lost between the pedestal and the shelf-
Speak some wicked wit and go on tour-
I’ll take that silver plane to the desert
and ask why I don’t feel like I used to
why I can't recall a day wasted with anyone anymore

making moves in miles with gusto
what am I trying to prove-
That I’ve adapted and you will too
writing songs for you-scherzos slitting the long, thin neck of blues
Till my insides will grind to gears and black grease
You set out to bind me with your debts and manic acts
well-memorized I get that-

but I fall for it every time cause it's fun
and the crowd ignores twos yet scowls and plots a sever
I turn over my palms
you claim to try to read the lines
embedded by my toil at the grindstone
hacked deep from grinding the axe
trauma bonds and clutched links-
you're attaching strings
that cross the 20 league intervals
talk'n to me bout'

self inflicted addictions you've carved at your temperament to keep
paychecks in the stead of careers
why then why should I loiter at your feet -like you'd like
or take you behind that curtain of the future-
you never planned anything but to be carried by your kin
starved for pity you cry in the concert

to be fulfilled but you know this isn't what you want,
if all the stars rushed and stuck to your thin skin
you'd scream and refuse every wish they'd ever offer
and you....you want to be the well dweller like me
broken and strewn out on unrequisition
you carry out all the curses I taught you
to cast upon others like when I was young and spiteful,

licking your wounds like the wolf you always were
alone and wondering why
because you were always bitter and beaten for no real reason
now you look dying
black smears and dirty hands digging deep in the graves of your pockets
No coins can buy that kind of time
you make your rounds
on all the girls who in their turn go round
and the lot of you come and go around till I'm dizzy simply observing

all the filth and all the hurting
I learned a long time ago
not to play chicken with a two sided knife
the feathers fly till you and your line-up of lovers
all look pretty fowl
pigeons claiming to be owls

I know not to try to combat with your past recollections and lingering strife
that just gets you down
and you-have so many faces-with never a change in expression
only partners and promises
let them make webs of you
till the traces link up every sex faction in this town
trails of the tasted and wasted
the bitter ones who sour all else

I watch the lines trail
a stench of fresh hormonal over-spill
with second hidden purposes unmentioned
vain agents of the toxic second agenda
to each their own-
tacking on tallies
bed posts and belts slashed to hell
and you're just a number-
well count me out

keep that vile museum of wrongs edified
while I move on
the records accounted for and the floor swept
I learn too fast so it's always outdated by the time I think back
you can't be a mimic of me-

reading up on my old news trying to force something to form a fuse
think that'll earn a fight for a light
I just want to get you deep into quarantine
and ignore that bait on a hook you hang
with the list of fresh catches sticking out of your pocket like a funny tongue
I'm smiling so often now at every scam to forfeit the best of me

I can be superb
and when I'm good I'm great
still you love to bend me
love to bend me till I'm breaking
You just want to forge a change-
anything anything-as long as you get a cling

Don't you know we're just
lost adams and eves
trying to relocate eden
no longer a one to one ratio
and there's so many gardens to choose from
and the snakes are everywhere-external and at the core
they tailored the fruit-

it's sweeter and brighter and the oration
is even more alluring then before
they got billboards now and top models about to bite
with miniskirts and fangs bleached white while
tired angels putting a rest their hot swords haunch over and sigh
lighting up again and tilt their wings-resting a halo on the gate
while we make a brake to get back into that cage
where it was safe-not from the tempter per say
but the mass much more tempted-

Here I am at a table in the back of a cafe
making apple bombs-snatching the coins crash-landing heads-up
in clinking threats of silver shrapnel confetti
thinking about that Van gogh Garden in spring
that bursts in full bloom when I'm satisfied-
focused and singing to myself-
what a wonderful world.