Hell’s half-acre

welcome back to the cold feet meshing
through the grass still green but turning
just a hint yellow, the trees the same
hinting at a slow death coming, but
this death inside has been a long time
coming and will be a long way going
so long as the blood decides to stay put
inside and not come rushing out no more
so long as the old days stay old and dusty
and don’t come calling at 3 a.m. like
they used to, asking the worst things
and giving the worst ideas to trembling
drunk hands, smashed glass and alcohol
thrown against the sterile moonlight
shrouding the pile of pictures on the wet
autumn lawn, but not now, this lawn is
clean now, dark as a cigarette butt mashed
against the subway platform—remember that
platform, kid? the one where we stood waiting
for the number five line and huffed and puffed
to ourself and lit up a good one for old times
sake, old times but good times, not those nasty
evil wanna kill yourself times, but the old bar times
the jack and coke surrounded by smoke times
friends 20 years old and 20 minutes, thick as thieves
and the perfect laughter of the bums across the bar
tellin’ stories about stealing trucks and raising
hell in their old days, their happy old days, not
their wanna kill themselves old days, and they
laugh so good and loud through the smoke
haze of that San Antonio bar that you can still
smell it, can’t ya kid, standing out in the numbing
wet cold lawn, the stars above the same ones
over old New York, over London and Berlin too
almost dawn there, and a whole lot more darkness
to go before the sun burns off all this moon
long way, kid, long way to go ‘till dawn

©2008 James Duncan