That Old Musty Chair

This evening’s wind comes from God

knows where.  It’s a hot sun filled wind

carrying the dust and pollen of nearby

abysmal empties into the cracks of

the city, to roost, to stammer

and break the old wild river city

                 wide open.

It’s the same green I used to see

choking up certain forgotten highways

up down twist about motion as my

whisky hand always gripped the steering

wheel with biting oiled alkie-hate

and senses keen for the law.  The

gray cracked ground of dried up

river beds under tiny half

remembered viaducts where my soul

used to preside.  

This evening I drink hot coffee out of

a wax dixie cup made for coffee complete

with topper so as not to spill and stain.

I sit in an old maroon faded chair

from the 30’s I bought from a thrift

shop with my estranged girlfriend but

soon to be wife in the chill fall of

2011.  I remember the way she buried

her face in my neck when she said

‘good bye’ after that thrift store trip and I

took that chair up stairs to my lonely room

and sat on it to write 16 songs over the

course of two months being apart.  I won

her back with my songs and the help

of that old musty chair.  I’ll probably

still be sitting in it when the world ends.

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(May __ 2014)