A Clerk to a Beggar
Why beg? hereÕs ten dollars
Ôinto an envelope–tomorrow.Õ
I sit at that desk
helping with the phone.
Why lie? donÕt beg in this hall;
if you bring it as you
say
IÕll see it.
IÕve got change for the meter.
Gas? whoÕs to prove
itÕs not for wine? Twelve stories up.
Song: Capital Punishment
hear it hear it
have they brought electric music
spine and bone spine and bone
in a chair
to look for wit when brains are thrown
hear ye hear ye
in the gallows being hung
are three strong men three strong souls
straight and tall
one of them has awful boils
all this reading hurts my eyes
the sun is yellowing
this authorÕs
lies
and
hear her hear he
all the friends are friends to someone
someone cold someone blue
in a star
it dies but we see it new
all this reading hurts my eyes
the sun is yellowing
this authorÕs
lies
and
the electric bill
is high-strung itÕs high-strung
dancing down a banister with
Cupid and his arrow of revenge.
It Is the Moment before You Replace the Books,
Not on the Shelves...
With my nose pressed on the window
I hear him slam his workshop door.
I hear so many things, I cannot see
a thing in the tunnel above which
the ships pass. I could never believe,
when I was young, how the tunnel was made,
or carried, as I heard once, around me.
Once I went with my father in the light
to a place where clothes are dropped for the
needy.
I never memorized the freeways sufficiently
so my travels are hard on my memory.
After that, the light vanishes, or is rare.
I can only conjure living many places
in a fleeing sense of forever.
Shall I walk back and forth to the window
and hear the slams of strangersÕ strengths?
There, in the oval tunnel, darkness
gives me no hint how it got around me.
How it got around me, how it got around me,
in the night, in the moment before I sleep,
how it got around me, around me.
Evening in a Break Shack
TheyÕre discussing a famous restaurant
in a fish-town by the gulf
where you used to wear what you wanted;
now you have to dress up.
One of them went there one day
with his motorcycle, his girl, too.
Both of them were casual
and had to leave the room.
An evening in a break shack,
an overtime dialogue;
ÒYouÕre so far away
and IÕm starting to age.Ó
Blues Tune
I like to see the stars before I sleep
because it assures me the sky is deep
on nights like tonight the sky is white
it seems so shallow, not really night
the pines stand tall, the branches hang out
all going nowhere, not wading out
after a while I see some purple streaks
like bruises of rouge on someoneÕs cheeks
soon the mask will crack and warp
IÕll hear the clock drown out dreamÕs harp
© David Francis