Fractured faery tales of south street

every fish must bow to a personal request - so here you go luv - the first time i ever walked down South Street in Philly, Pennsylvania, USA; i knew i was going to live there some day - and i still know that...

FRACTURED Faery Tales OF SOUTH STREET
(February 27, 1999)

I
There was madness in the air
Late that afternoon
And the sun set
In neon drops of rain,
The Autocade passed beneath
The barricades blazing blue
“You’ve got to be kidding me . . .”
“The president of what?”
The idea of a shot rang out
In the silence of the night
But we watched him pull away
Trailing his crown of brass.

II
In this kingdom of smoke-filled avenues
And graveyards of dying art,
A garden graced with broken pottery
And games played out in glass,
I wished to find my solitude
Hiding in vintage shops
Or set on dusty book-shelves
Stocked with Byron and Dr. Martins,
There, sitting next to sleeping cats
With vampyres round each corner,
“Do you believe in coincidences?”

III
South Street heard me coming
And put on its prettiest facade:
A conundrum of passing faces;
Bobby Burns lost himself to diner coffee
And left his book in the piercing shop.
I see poems of red spikes on blonde boys
And ladies dressed in velvet with evening cigars,
Eyes, there and black leather pants
Following our gazes across the street.

IV
As we passed ages
Folded into smoky crystals
And tunnels of the ocean to infinity,
It struck me,
Here they were dressed for dancing
There, framed in red and black lace,
I’d lost my mind to the mountains’ gold
And my heart to the nighttime silver,
I fell in love
To the tune of candle shops, scented oils
And planted fluorescent lights,
That grow like weeds
Between headstones of buried creativity
And sugar sweet memories.

V
You dream of dying white picket fences
And smiles in carefully crafted waterfalls
While giants roam the land dressed in steel.
I take my late night coffee white
But my late night sky is purple.
“Do you smoke?
Would you like to?”
I ask the ghosts of Philly
As the hunters become the hunted
And signs tell of other things:
Of army green laughing eyes
And bizarre embracing lovers
Sold on our polluted shores.
I tell you this my friend,
The faeries dance across the waves
And your illusions play their lonely games
In painted shells on painted sands
While you smoke in the shadows of old.

VI
My perfect images of perfect eyes,
One of shadow, one of sound,
And one of Dali painting souls,
Dance with Atlantic City lights
While the Stonecutter gets drunk
With the punks of street corners
And poets exist in all dreams.
We tried to drown our sorrows
In bottomless cups of diner coffee
But some filtered in with the cream and sugar
So we waited for the sun to rise
Before driving over the bridge toward home,
The shadows chased us through Cure lyrics
And we lost our way on the other side,
But that, my dear,
Is an entirely different story.