the city blinks at me wondering if I have come back to
pay tribute
perhaps to deposit the stain of my gratitude upon its
lacquered walls of screaming solitude
or perhaps to admire the ghosts of stooped black as
night women
caressing the rusted guardrails of the tightly woven asphalt
ribbons
that crisscross this grumbling city
faint trails of blue/white auto exhaust
design paths to murky glowing ancient downtown towers
where the hard and soft memories of women I slowly and
deeply kissed
still mingle with the dense steam vapors from the holes in
the broken streets
limping streetlamps mark the entrance to the secret blues bar
where the
where the scent of big mama blues belters
who will kick your ass in one second and embrace you with
tears in the next
is stained into the rough cut planks of the ancient
floor
outside the cold inferno of musical despair and joy
your watch the burn-scarred Victorian crack houses blur by
their empty facades drawing out memories of stolen kisses
that throb in this land of cozy jagged dreams
the pinprick puncture wounds to my bruised and brittle
soul
circle about like Sisyphus and his rock
as I plead for the
my heart breaks a thousand million times
and I wind up cursing the Motor City Djinn
in a bottle
who never gave me my three
wishes