He had his nights.
Fridays were his time to shine
as an uncrowned king for a night,
his chance always felt like his last chance
to forget the lurid spectre
of being just another sorry ass
getting kicked from time clock to taxes by the Man
Fridays were his nights, his time,
the shackles felt looser
the blood flowed just a little bit easier,
the eagle flew albeit not too high
but high enough
to reach the currency exchange,
then the liquor store,
it’s talons snatching at lottery ticket dreams
just barely visible as fleeting shadows.
Then out into the dusk
out among the leaning streets
anchored by twilight corners,
out among the hustlers,
the gangsters, the crackheads
and those who live to know these streets
like an acupuncturist knows where the energy flows
and what it does when it gets there.
He’s pulled by the oldest dowsing rod a man can ever know
this king for a night,
now a prospector panning turbulent streets
looking but trying not to look like he’s looking.
An exoskeleton of loose ends
walking the walk of paydays and lonely hungers.
Then he looks
and she sees him look
and the look becomes their very first shared experience,
as they look out for the cops
Then he lays himself down,
a 15 minute king
in a 15 dollar room
that stinks of roaches
and the compromised passions of the unloved.
“Now” he commands
as he finds himself where he lays himself
an uncrowned king
executing his soiled reign atop a worn out mattress
where fleas and crabs dance on cum stains as old as the fall of Sodom.
An uncrowned king of an untitled wilderness
biting his lower lip
beneath the mechanical sucking and bucking
of a hollowed out crack o lantern
during the length
of the burn
of a menthol
cigarette.
“Now” he moans
as he hijacks his imagination
one more time
to transform her eyes from hard rail road spikes
into the smolder of exclusive seduction,
one more time
to transform her from prostitute
to composite sketch of the first girl he’d fucked
and the thousands he’s jacked off over in magazines,
one more time
to transform the certainty of this graceless despair
into an egregious rationalization of supply and demand.
“Now” he sighs
and even to him it sounds like gas seeping from a corpse
as he begins his shuddering, wet descent into temporary surrender.
And someplace
between Sunday’s redemption
and Friday’s hungers
a comfortless abyss stares back at him.
The Man still kicks his sorry ass from time clock to taxes
The eagle still flies but never high enough.
The rent is a week past due.
The lottery mocks his faith in statistics.
It burns when he pisses
The sufferings of his life have still yet to fully bloom.
And another temporary king
dies a little more on his way to the strip.
Continuing his search for a genuine crown.
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