RAY

 
                "all the tears, all the
                rage, all the blues in the
                             night" 
                    Robbie Robertson

Even while you were
            pissing in the streets
With the poets of North Beach
     In the womb corner of your mind
     You were still just a
         Dago-Mc from North Hill,
                   Akron, Ohio,
         A car-wash clown, once,
              You drove a Jingle-Scoot
That played its tune backwards
      Through the summer.
And then a Yellow Cab
              Picking  up
       Drunk black ladies
                      Who talked
       About getting fucked
           On a Saturday night
        As if you wern't there.

And back home again
     When they coiled the rosary
Around your chromatic hands,
       Playing backwards,
            They got their say, they got their
       Cheap shot.
    The music's over.
Then this for us-
         Dear Brother-
After one next whiskey bar,
        ONe        stumbling
  Midnight laugh at the moon.
         "Leap high", Li PO.