Barefoot Cobblestones

Everybody dances to the music of the traveling muses, the sways and barays of the homeless foes, belting through great fires, oil canvas, and nougat fireworks, stepping on barefoot cobblestones, leaping, hearing the church bells and drinking the sweet wine of Jesus Christ, reveling the glory of the smoky summer night, kicking cans like champions, wagering and losing, playing and winning, shouting across the endless island air, echoing off the stone and the ancient walls with modern soccer, yet practicing the customs that are god-knows-how-old and will always live in the hearts and minds and souls of those who have run in those streets and drunk the fireworks and watched the wine and licked the nougat and sang the lovely songs of the Virgin Mary and Saint Lawrence, placed the cannons in the barrels and dropped them off the side of the churches while the choruses swell and sway to the sounds of the gypsy instruments, the revolutions and explosions that glide across the sea spray of the familial ports and the creation of the whirls bangs buzzes fizzes of the great filibuster fuses that drive this wild-minded, watery celebration filled with toasts and wins and smoky fireworks and a spirit that carries the blood of the night.

The Car of Loneliness

The road is dark, the lights wave and flicker
The air is thick and the silence thicker
I feel like trash and my head’s a mess
My body’s bruised, I need your sweet caress
The car is cold, the window colder
Rain drips down, I need your shoulder
My cheek pressed up against the glass
God knows when the fog will pass

I might be asleep but this ain’t dreaming
My stomach sinks and my nerves are screaming
Roman candles fight my mind
I’m wide awake and I can’t unwind
The sky is cloudy, my heart is lead
This seat is nothing like a bed
Frustration pounds, a biting rage
I’m bleeding, trapped inside this cage

I tell the driver some strange lie
The car slows down, the tension high
Utterly convinced that I deserve more
The car is stopped, I throw open the door
My legs are stiff but I’m soon on hard ground
For one last time I look around

Then I’m sprinting through the night
My shoes pound mud, I’m out of sight
The air is fresh and my mind is clear
I leap through puddles like a deer
This ain’t heaven but it’s something close
I’m alive again, I beat the ghosts
Full of joy that I didn’t stay
I learned to chance at life that day