Sprung from a cage lying on the side of the road blood dripping from a mouth sceptics picking bones envious souls circle up above, screaming. Its wild out here now we know we were born to die we were born to dream.
Fiction & Opinion by Jeff Campagna
Posts from the “Poems” Category
‘I’ve had my share a two things in this life,’ says the man with fadin’ tattoos. To which Johnny slurred out ‘Let me guess, one’s women, the other’s booze.’ ‘Not at alls in that order Johnny, but you guessed right-as-hell indeed!’ ‘Well man,’ Johnny says drunkenly, ‘guess we’re made of the same breed. Flocks of a feather or somethin’ my old lady Brimm used to say, I say ‘used’ of course cause now she’s sent me on my way. So these past nights I’ve been haunting bars on this here street, Lookin’ for liquid answers and a free hot meal to eat.
The blue of the night sky. The drip, drip, drip from an ancient eaves trough. The yellow glare of cracked lights upon the worn, greedy, jumbled stones. Walls of buildings slant and slope like drunken men stumbling through drunken streets a thousand years ago. I blend in more with the streets than I do with the men. I am more rock than blood. The whole place shines, every cobbled-stone, every tumbled brick, every faded door and each and every rotted iron balustrade as though it were oiled down and ready for the show. The great big show of time. And there I sit, in the middle of time, amidst its active waters and heedless winds, amidst its hungry stare and smoky breath. There I…
Our man Johnny had been many a place, every city and every town, And held down almost every job a hustler can hold down. He’d gone through every state, north to south and east to west, But at this time he rode a train from Maine and certain arrest. I’m not gonna tell you what he did or exactly how he did it, Just believe you me when I tell ya a crime he did commit. Well, there he was, our great hero, under a tarp of dusty grey, In the back of a soggy grain cart like some American cliche. One that you’d read in Kerouac and think this can’t be true, But for guys like Johnny and like Jack, it’s all they…
Johnny Mark was born on the very day his daddy died. One soul in and one soul out for which his momma cried. Johnny’s dad died that night at the wrong end of a gun And no one ever came to know exactly what he had done. But he had done one thing for sure, and that’s fathered himself a child Who would grow to like his odds yey high, and his women wild. Johnny’s momma, though young and dumb, knew what the odds were too She’d heard ‘nuff stories ‘bout other girls with no men to see them through. So if she couldn’t have two, she didn’t want one, and she made up her mind To find another momma for Johnny if they…