Baltimore Lions

The Seattle rain king, chasing beauty in the realm of night,
She can never come home again, must remain in Heaven.

Soundgarden, Love's Like Suicide.
Listen to the lion rattler shake, he smiles and walks among them.

He ran from them once, in the streets of Baltimore.
Close on his heels, he leapt

Into the company of strange companions with guns.
They had shining teeth--and he lost all of them.

They played a game of poker once.
By chance, he knew some things about powder and pack.

"I have a breast plate. Knock, knock."
Aim here, instead of here.

He knew the odds, but,
Always, what are the chances?

She said she needed to become a receptionist.
He could not pay for anything.

She brought him groceries and other pleasing things.
He said, no, stop that.

Black and white people,
Don't be too rude when she asks about your momma.

She may drop that purse, only a single time, and wait.
If you pick it up and hand it to her, that's enough.

Try not to be too bad, she's good enough.
Twisted sheets, baby.

A kid named "Money" wants to move into the neighborhood.
There is some grass and a few deciduous trees,

That turn black in October and whisper through the telephone lines.
That's enough snuff.

Lions in the doorways, block captains, dealing smack,
Cannot hide from the police cars.

"Do you party?", they sigh, dying for some decent conversation.
"No, thanks. Just knock if you need anything."

He has some soul food cooking on the kitchen stove,
His mother, raised on a ranch in Missoula, Montana,

Congratulates him on taking good, country care of himself.
He thinks about horseback riding and misses home.

Somebody steals his pickup truck.
Next, his wallet is stolen by a homeless veteran.

The fear in his lizard brain cracks into a siren in his head,
And everything plunges into the realm of night

Once again.

Where is the goddess of flowers?
She came here once from the Philipine Islands,

She seemed cute, gave him a pair of children,
One white, one black.

The door knock only happens twice
Before he turns everything inside out,

Fearless and searching, how come
They keep bringing groceries and practically starve themselves?

He wrote poetry once, and said, "here."
She lost it all and was so frequently apologetic.

He never did miss her much, until he realized,
Every perfect being gets hit by a boomerang at least once.

These things keep repeating themselves,
On and on without any sacred, breakthrough realizations.

Tialoc, try to sleep.