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Get What You Can
At nights we’d sit out on the balcony drinkin
Breathin
That thick mug air
Of a New Orleans summer evening.
Livin as easy
As they’d let us
In the bowels of the Irish Channel
Where magnolias bloom all year long
Amidst the cracked walks
And hungry dogs
Not quite getting enough
From the day’s trash.
Crumpled ashcans turned asunder
Over the curbing and into the street
Like it’s some kinda joke or something.
Windows open
Worn curtains flowin
Stereo blastin Stevie Wonder
Down St. Mary’s street.
And it was enough
Sittin on that ragged dustbag couch with a friend.
We felt like kings.
Drinkin and talkin about the girls of last weekend,
Discussin everything
We’d promised not to tell.
Our money almost gone,
Dissolved away last weekend
By alcohol solvent,
Fun girls, good times.
Yea, who cared if paychecks
lasted through two good days of fun.
The two fun days made up for the five hard days
Sweatin out wages.
We were drinkin Flambeaux from the bottle
And the half moon rose
Over night streets.
A Palmetto bug flies by
And into my place.
Probably to join his friends
Doin a song and dance on the counter.
A mouse crawls along the electric wire
Strung from the pole across the street
To our balcony.
For a moment
I feel that the mouse
May somehow share our feelings
Of life’s simple pleasures.
He crawls along the wire
Maybe thinkin of
Juicy tidbits left on the side of a stewpot,
Or a discarded chicken bone
Strewn behind the refrigerator,
Wash it down with a day-old can of Schlitz on its side.
I can almost see him smile
As I toss the empty bottle of Flambeaux at him.
My aim is short
And the bottle bounces off the wire
To sail down and crash
Amidst the neighbor’s trash.
And the mouse sails down too.
We hear the plop as he hits the pavement.
For a moment I feel bad
For what I have done to bottle and flesh.
But that New Orleans summer mouse
Just sorta shrugs
And starts to walk away.
Until the cat darts out
From under the landlord’s new Chrysler.
In this world, you gotta get what you can
Or die tryin.
Glass crumples under our feet
As we walk by on our way to the liquor store
For another few bottles of cheap wine.
Flambeaux, on a muffuletta night.
Carl kicks an ashcan over
And into the middle of St. Mary’s street.
And that’s worth a good laugh.
You bet.
A magnolia petal
Floats down
Through the thick mug summer air
And lands beside a scavenging dog.
Copyright ©
Joe Flambo
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