THE JOURNEY

The siren echoes, the chatter of Beretta cries
The stench of forty dollar rooms with sheets not washed or dried
The light from overhead incandescent luminaire flickers with the fan
He has a two AM buffet Chinese rice and a warm half empty can of beer
Don’t put the pencil down
 
We have work to do my friend before first light, finish me in time
Only halfway done with instauration, will you make my notes sublime
Whiskey has eschewed your rhythm and slowed the melodic verse
The powder caused a drift inward beyond an irretrievable curse
Don’t put the pencil down
 
One more stanza I take to life, a chorus, a bridge built on 4/4 time
Bring voices, guitar and mandolin that makes couplets rhyme
I will radiate with rhythm and melody as they dance around the guitar
Waiting to be lifted on a pedestal or hoisted on my own petard 
Don’t put the pencil down
 
I hear daybreak, rainwater butt taps time through the open the window
A loud knock on the door the turning of the neoclassic handle
Brassy scream exhaled, servile mulatto becomes affixed on the shell 
Another listless poet laying prone on the floor, having unlock his temporal cell
Don’t put the pencil down
 
Waited my turn, family rummaged his belongings realizing the worse
Dirty shirts, worn out set of jeans a pair of Chuck Taylor Converse Tossed into a trash bag an unceremonious journey to a distant shore 
I hope this not my destiny as they see me on the floor
Don’t put the pencil down
 
They reach for the yellow number two then picked me up with questions 
Was this cursory write of personality traits or a last confession
For posterity, I was inserted into an envelope and to the Antebellum South transported
I laid amongst her treasure memories, mothers troubled son’s history shortened
Don’t put the pencil down
 
Living entombed in a canvas box, sentimentally placed beside the old lady’s couch
With Canonical hour vespers, I was read as her wounded heart cried out
Tears would fill her eyes with memories, knowing what had come as if she a prophet
Each night she writes on to me her tormented prophecy communicates with sonnet
Don’t put the pencil down
 
The passing of the old lady’s days disappearance of her anguish night would come to end
No more would she write, or wet her pillow with tears of guilt to make amends
Final word she wrote on me expressed her lost for her one so lovely
With an interrogative and one exhale, she did not have a recovery
Don’t put the pencil down
 
Again, they found me, in a stockpile of many papers, old and new
The second grandchild pick me up with a moody attitude 
He read my words, saw my soul and moved to the Bosendorfer
The piano keys express the need and wrote my story over
Don’t put the pencil down
 
Now the gala mob, the loud applause the names were read aloud
For best new song, I heard the throng as five names read aloud
The envelope was opened and the Grammy’s best new song awarded
As the journey continues beyond tonight, the moments been supported
Don’t put the pencil down