broke the deal with the dollar
hungry man on the street
potbellied pothead scratching for
ten more dimes and a hundred million
more offshore resevoirs
where he swears he'll find the treasure
when the folk in his veins
breaks loose into an epidemic
of chaotic non-electric lights and
all he really wants to see through
and have someone love him say
maybe he's not a poison or a disease
fascinating the battleships
floating through the gutters
and duct-taped on his brow
wrinkling across the city
like a spreading canvas aging
and fossilizing into a winter cold
the shoppers can't catch
better bundle up with the fur of
their neighbor's greyhound
dog too desperate to spit out
what they feed him on fridays
cherry jellybean paste molded
to the shape of bleeding celery stalks
as his feet crunch on pedigree
in a graveyard where ancient bones
don't live don't break
when the men keep walking
on the sidewalks between the
building blocks of the future they anticipate
minus smokestacks and fire escapes
where it's a lonely road to the next day
when the sun refuses to meet mythology
and he's stuck trying to feel in the dark