‘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.
Fiction & Opinion by Jeff Campagna
Posts tagged “poem”
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…
The rain came down and the smoke went up on a sticky southern eve And that night a thing happened, a thing you won’t believe And just cause I tell ya what went down way back then It don’t mean in this life or the next it will happen again. He was no shark nor a business man, just a drunk and a fool So, Johnny Mark finished his drink and his game of hustled pool And then went out with pockets full into that sticky southern air But the lights outside the pool hall doors showed his wear and tear. That’s when Johnny walked to the road in the foggy shade of night Towards a lonely highway and a flickering traffic light If…
a thousand birds fly into the sky no one stops to ask them why yet they fly without fear and without cause they heed no warnings, they heed no laws each bird has an end so clear and though it may not be so near things like the winds of fear have no bearing on which way they steer those birds fly through the skies of life they fly through hate, they fly through strife a perfect flight can never be had the world is wicked, the world is mad as time goes by their flight seems vain for time distorts what people can’t explain and it leaves a mark, a deep set stain a flight that was freedom is now pain