“Each Morning I Rise Like a Sleepwalker & Rot a Little More.”
By Jeff Walt
"Each Morning I Rise Like a Sleepwalker & Rot a Little More."
—Amiri Baraka
Two packs of Pall Malls while leaning
on this window sill all day
& hollerin', Choco, take me down
the Hershey Highway! instead
of looking for work.
Between Cloves & men, my dear Chocolate
Transsexual Goddess of Delight—"Best Blow Job
on Lemon Street"—thrusts her usual hula
at tourist cruising in a Humvee limousine. Prince
somewhere singing Tick, Tick Bang.
Tonight my budding career is standing here—rent's due
on this room and Mr. Manager
tacked a pink slip to the door.
So, I say it aloud: I've missed the bull's-eye in this life.
Never chased a tornado.
Not one tomb unearthed.
No Lotto blown.
I remember being saved.
There was a priest kneeling; he read prayers
from gilded pages.
Now I worship down
at Tony's liquor store
where that cleft-lipped kid
on the donation box stared
the last bit of lint
outta my conscience
for buying a pint of skunk instead.
In Group my brothers handed me
an invisible hammer & nails, told me to build
a house on the inside.
I love Chocolate.
She owns her dark alley.
She's home,
& she knows how to work it.
Source: http://www.givalpress.com/
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