Through the stained streets
and circus faces
of nighttime San Diego
a lone sailor
(drunk as only a sailor can be)
makes his way from bar to bar.
Hookers with dollar signs in their eyes
follow him, persuade him,
curse him, turn away.
Were he a younger man,
(who did not wear his
eighteen-years-of-service
like a crown of thorns)
he could be opiated, dissipated
making empty love
to lonely teenage queens
of desperation.
Up the street
in a sawdust country dive
nighttime cowboys dance
with hillbilly ladies
whose only crime, like his,
is that of birth?
And weeping steel guitars
sing empty promises
of temporary oblivion.
For poetry and more, visit Mecella.