Angel For Alley Cats

 

"Never trust a man in a blue trench coat,

never drive a car when you're dead" --Tom Waits, "Telephone Call From Istanbul"

Don't drink that donkey piss, Angelo.

It'll make you dream of broken bells.

You'll wake up with a six-armed woman

who keeps her heart inside a sandy shell.

Come with me, Angelo,

say you'll pay them tomorrow with windfall money.

I know a place where saints serve spring water 

from blue painted pitchers, and it tastes like honey.

Angelo, don't you have a mother somewhere

waiting by the window where the spiders spin?

Pretend I'm a rolling bottle and follow me

down the Old Beach Road where she'll let us in.

What am I gonna do with you, Angelo?

Is there fare for fortune under your hat?

Leave it, but bring your bouzouki

to play like an angel for the alley cats.

_________

for The Sunday Muse #224.

Music: The Psychedelic Furs "Heaven"

 

Old Fashioned Notions

I am given to old-fashioned notions--
you might find my calling card
and have to fuck with it while juggling groceries and your keys,
your life a tough clog, the door a riddling Sphinx.

You might think me too quaint to take seriously, 
wrapped in my shawl, a book under my arm.
You're in, setting shit down, taking a breath, but there's the bell--
who, now? Just me, peddling anarchy,

slipping the dynamite stick into your mail slot;
whispering baby talk to the bomb I made and set on a doily
at your doorstep, a shy and retro demonstration
of my love for you, and my devotion to things fashioned by firelight

and brought back, bursting, from a sweeter past.
_____