Transparent Words - Poetry

 
Jones Street, San Francisco
 
By Rich Furman
 
 
Jones beat
On Jones street
Drop a quarter
See a girl
Clad in sneakers
............Bruises
.........................Scars
Baby in back butcher room foodless.
Kids swing on chains
In sad sandbox playgrounds
Ruined by the madness of the times
Playing in the mounds
Where junkies roam
Shoot for the heavens
Escaping their hell
Hide their needles in
The lostness of themselves.
 
Jones beat
On Jones street
Pills the prince
Horse the king
Crack the holy
Ghost dripping fleshing hanging
Slide through filthy tracked hands
Time done
Life undone
Pull the covers
..........Pull the shades
.....................Then the final white sheet
Siren blows
Rain falls black sludge face down in sewer grate.
 
Jones beat
On Jones street
Join the army
See the world
Or stay with comrades lost
To the optionless tide
Pools of the streets of your youth
Minds and souls Jonesing
...............Frying.

Pg14

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