Clinch Avenue, Knoxville, April 1994
 
Two blocks away, The Gryphon's Den is still packed tight, 
swimming with miscreant shards of personality,
screaming those yawps, barbaric and pleading,
sadly forming pillars of salt.
 
On a sidewalk in the spring-ish night,
spearheading a campaign, sharing the work,
we hobble, bottle of Boone's in hand,
new comrades warring the same language.
 
Outside your bungalow,
in a place between crumbling asphalts, ripe with new weeds
we sit, winking around for one last drink and the lost arts,
the uncrowded street our canvas you said, a blanket of
inspiration.
 
Legends of Mexican Lesbian Junkies and real minorities,
the ecstasy of small concentric circles in between the legs of
women,
and the practice of schoolgirls with thick-trunked pencils,
your stories snake along the veins,
climb the twisted nameless night-blooming vine.
 
Fables of rhythm and timing, of the old chants pealing 
your tales catch at the back of my throat, slicing exhalation
like a habit I'd like to neglect.
 
Everyone feels smart in a university town.