Pretty

He’s got greasy jet black bangs reaching over dirty brows, hanging like curtains above mud pie eyes.

He’s in cold sweat with icy yellow fingertips

and has damp socks bunched against broken toes inside a worn leather boot.

The booze was shot down the song chute the night before and the roaring power tools forced this bum to rise and not to sunshine but to banging and stomping around, going on one floor above.

It’s a rustle in the middle of a whistling wind of night circling the smog of the hustle and bustle city.

But, close your eyes long enough and anything can be pretty.

Close your eyes long enough, you can be pretty too.

The fan rattling on the ceiling makes up for lack of company.

The siren screaming from red and blue lights racing by the barred apartment window may as well be a song of ode to the old curbside and cold street.

Body heat-

Body heat causes this canker sore carcass to perspire. He paces with smoke in thought. He paces to and fro with half a smoke in hand.

He’s alot like the old anarchist and much like the whining hound.

He coughs and sounds alot like that beat up rusty truck trying to start.

But, don’t get him started or he’ll try and start to act like he doesn’t give a fuck but with a bit of luck, unlike the truck he may not be stuck in the mud with a fire burning at the frontside.

He might have some more fuel.

He uses up the last of his greens and sees a performer with slanted hat over a grand piano playing blues and devil jazz.

But, goddamn them jams was good.

If only he could play the piano, he thought.

He’s alot like the dreamer.

He’s so much like the player himself-

simply mad

and mad about most things made up in the mansion of mind.

He’s unkind

to all and himself.

He watches the mirrors and washes away the grease pot gathering slime in his hair.

He sees out the window how in the dark everything is invisible; everything except the city

but if you close your eyes long enough anything can be pretty.