today like everyday

the children
we're all strung along the block
surrounding the stoop
listening towards nirvana.
one of those Frenchman st. nights
of new orleans.
we we're hustling well
all of the passing tourists
with songs and our wild look about life.

"hey Pete, you're going to the store?
well pick me up another beer will yah
- just one, yeah thanks."

too many cigarettes floatin about
peppering the air with a sick
nowhere about.
the night was young, only about ten o'clock.
i shoved my way among the drunken colourful
crowd over to the spotted cat
where washboard chazz was sitting in with some dixie land band.
i was all over the window trying to peek a sneak in at
how they made they're magic sound.
every two minutes the boys on stage would chant
and get the crowd inside to chant back.
they knew they were making some good tips that night.

hunger had been killin me, but with a good lick of jazz
and drink, i'd make it alright till morning,
where at the cafe i usually order a egg and cheese toast
with coffee.
for more fill i use lots of morning tobasco and ketchup.

with hustling over, the gang of kids would meander
down frenchman to where on burgundy a tight joint
was held together.
the name of the bar is The John; where every fool
and crust fuck goes to get a lick of something cheap and hard.
the bartenders fill mason jars up half with the hard drink and the rest
with whatever mix you want.
friends catch whiskey sours a lot, but i prefer the whiskey gingers.

after all said and done, a few pool games shot (lost and won),
people make it home.
groups on a level of straight line bought
from Jeffrey the neighborhood candy man,
walk out down streets like the cockroaches of evening
worked about, over nothing and everything.
the drunks either love each other or fight each other.
and some, loners as they are, sit outside with their
backs against the brick building waitin for somebody, something,
somewhere to happen and be lonely about again.

evening air in new orleans is old, warm - a stench for every block.
jazz radio spinning out of windows as you pass them on your way home.
a few strangers in dark ride by on tall bikes and small bikes, holding the most
absurd of conversation, speeding through Elisian Fields, Mandeville, Press street across
the tracks where ghosts of sillhouettes walk slowly through the mississippi mist.
and a hollow buddha moon glows on as you turn your back towards the night, kissing it all,
wishing it farewell - but knowin you must leave and close your eyes with a baby in bed readin all your books under the beautiful broken light you need to replace, yet without it the piss and shit on your walls wouldn't look as great with the families of mice and cockroach sputtering back and forth on the floor.
you make it back. slam the door to keep out any ghosts.
see your housemate chattin it up over the silence of a cigarette with a few other people.
say "hey" to everyone and wind on down walkin
up your flight of broken stairs
only to find babe, soft and sweet,
stretching a "hello" as you turn on the lights
and roll another cigarette
to have while skimming the new york times
for stories about the dead.
you feel the warm winter wind
blow through your window
sayin "yo".
time is time and it is time to farewell kiss goodnight in bed
as all excuse for love in life comes out
with one another, you and your sweet,
in bed again for tomorrow day to wake up
like every day and breathe again.