Avenue of Americanism

American cities can drown
and black turned purple bodies bob around
like lilypads reclaimed by hungry swamp
and when the last of the street prophets,
deshevled and disrobed, snakes his way out
under the radar, unseen and un counted
I see America bathing in shit
handfull of painkillers and lips marking
high water point, sinking down

In daytime I don't know my drunken, stumble down streets
anymore, concrete softened by churchbell sun
antique shops open their doors to sell me old family photos
sepia toned borrwed history, but that looks enough like grandpa when he was young
I don't wonder where they got it.
Cigar shop indian asks me for directions to 3 star bistro
with 5 star prices
No, not indian, not even made of wood, but he
smells of cedar and his eyebrows are painted on

Johnny Cash is begging for dry socks,
while I'm wading through cheap Tuscan wine
they lap it up, like feral dogs, only vaugly remebering
their owners hand, they see me as a threat
I don't have terror eyes. I'm their twisted
acid burned mirror image. When the desperate, naked-from-the-
mustace-down camera man
goes to record his last
moments for posterity
I'll be sleeping under his Toyota
to stay out of the wind
used to be Main St
renamed Avenue of Americanism