Drunken Jazz

Dancing wild, drunken folly
the night sky retches at
the stench of benches strewn
with wine and bodies,
arms too laden to lift
heads too thoughtful to think,
muse on wonder.
As the fountain sings a blue number,
hailing the coming day
and sure knowledge of being
raped by coins and tramps.
Sing, water, sing; clear my
mind of the haze beer brings,
Aphrodite falls down each zag
of the zig in the acorn stone.
These cobbles are older than America,
though the Cherokee would disagree,
don’t step on the cracks while
the walls echo the marbled
shouts of a thousand years
hands to your ears you hear
yourself whispering yourself to sleep.

And naked silhouettes touch nipples
in the dark, sleek form bodies
against a backdrop of stars
cosmos of lights through thin glass
windows of the tenement heights.