The next reading, at Duff's, 392 North Euclid, in the Central West End, will be held on Monday, June 27, will feature Phil Gounis, Will Kyle, and Nicky Rainey.
Doors open at 7:30 p.m.; admission is $3.
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Sometime Home Sweet St. Louis
Anyone who has struggled with poverty knows how extremely expensive it is to be poor. --James Baldwin
Madame Candice Cane of the barrio night working Cherokee and Jefferson for too little greenbacks loose change sidewalk tic-tacs and pall malls comes to/to me
waiting on my bus chock-filled with wiser time African brothers/grandmas/grandpas/sisters
and maybe just maybe one gone slummin’ yuppie posin’ as one gone runnin' honky
Madame with her paradise lost serpent sibilant sss looking me over like potted rump roast
studying me like a bargain bin dolly with one eye three swivel limbs and soiled pinky toes
jagging about stripping Candice could tell me some stories but the black eye/shiner track marks and screaming pimp have all done a mighty fine job my beloved sad Madame
speaking of job, i sure could use me a stimulus package cackles the Eddie Murphy meets Red Foxx taxicab comedian after spilling he knows who killed Kennedy
and it wasn't no damn whatever Harvey Oswald but butt-ugly lipless grizzled white dudes in hand-me-down justice gowns
claiming their falling domino war machine can and always shall be the only game in town
and Eddie Foxx just don't understand no bailout coin for the average EveryMan/Woman
laughing aloud through his bughouse bound economic turnaround tactic . . . take
the muthafuckin money back from the crooked as shit banks we bailed out . . .
give every blue collar and below muthafucka one hundred godamn dollars an hour
then we sho gonna buy some shit
I am down/lowdown/way-down with Eddie's grandmaster plan while thinking & blinking outta dirty palm-oil-smeared window at Big Time Birdman
strutting with some dip in his hip some little glide in his stride some bit of roll in his stroll sportin' bermuda shorts & black dress socks pulled knee-high in penny loafers
pigeon feather and burnt crisp Old Glory stapled to his Vietnam Veteran baseball cap digging for filet mignon and french fries in Operation Brightside garbage cans
outside one colossal catholic church that would not allow this poor beautiful
bastard
to genuflect hard & pray simply because
he smells like fried chicken and gasoline The smart money says Jesus stunk to high heaven ain't that right Birdman ain't that wrong Birdman
closing the sacristy doors on you love starving you back sliding you in this St. Louis thicker than butter milk summer heat
on foot now here comes Old John the homeless graveyard caretaker headphones blaring what sounds like one wild hair mixology of popeye/billy graham/pink floyd/radio snow
Old Johnny gets free smokes and coffee on the richies' side of the tracks in Central West High End stocks and bonds wonderland
with egg biscuits and bagel crumbs falling from his beard to his toes sauntering down
the sidewalk asking me in his huff-puff slack jaw mumble if I got good dope to smoke
remarking You look the part of the 70s cop show street dealer boy but my answer being one fat tragic no I wonder who's gonna cry when Old John's dead & gone hopin' someone
maybe the bus stop ghetto blasting beatbox boy doing his bass drum and high hat crash
born-in-Brooklyn record scratch with only cottonmouth tongue dry spittle lips and silver
shine teeth making music to earn one solitary cigarette from me rather I give him three
one for the melody and two for the road
to east coast/west coast hip-hop-king-of-the-hill madman stardom where the suicide bomber's seventy-two virgins ain't nothin'
where pure disco shit ten-grams-in-one coke snorts ain't no thang where poor mama gets outta the ghetto cause she's oh so tired of luggin' groceries bent down
by castaways on Friends & Luvers brokeback corner of Grand & Gravois where prostitutes leave polaroids for passersby goose stepping over junkpiles days old
used jimmy hats sippy cup baby bottles bone dry skag needles 7 Come 11 Cash Blowout Gold Rush scratch-offs half-eaten White Castle belly bombers popsicle sticks
three well thumped bibles where this gotta have more more more American dream burst forth from the pulpit to the parent to the playground to the schoolhouse to the bedroom
tricklin' down like good ole fashioned Reaganomics tricklin' down New Orleans bound
streamin' down to the dregs
riff-raff/have-nots/throwaway/rabble rousers too sick & tired of bein' too sick & tired
and we soul/eye-ball deep here in St. Louis
-- Shane Signorino
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