As the hot engine cools in this crisp autumn night

Stars quietly peek out from behind the clouds.

The lake reflects such an indigent moonlight.

Cars float down Esplanade Avenue without destination in sight.

The world moves past Lake Pontchartrain like clockwork

And yet everything is calm, smooth like plastic.

I shuffle along Royal Street, down the sidewalk

Grimly clutching a cup of coffee stained Kerouac.

The air remains still and uninterested,

It too, still sleeps and thusly ignores me.

Sirens toward Charity Hospital wail like babies

Shattering my silence like a dull, rusted knife.

A Canal Street bum sleeps in the gutter

Another vagabond shuffling down Magazine.

Down Decatur the hustlers gather in the alleys.

She sells her body on Bourbon for her son.

I'm far too quick to judge, or to simply be engaged.

Perhaps I'm too scared of being loved and lost

In Thornton Wilder's town, better than some I'm told.

I'll just have to worry about that in the morning.

Now the sidewalks crumble into the far flung weeds.

The broken bottles lie in shards on the curb

Shimering silently in light of passing cars.

I am alone here, in this distant world.

10/18/1984

Author's Note: I am from New Orleans...

Posted on 10/02/2007
Copyright © 2025 Joe Cramer