lingua obscura

Summer Suite in the key of Kansas City

At the beginning of summer
my neighborhood was transformed into 16th century Verona
the players gave a streetclothes rehearsal
for an audience of lightbulbs

and me biking by with my dreams
riding on the handlebars

each night
girls walk around
like apparitions of beauty
only they aren't apparitions

beside the windowsill
I drank a glass of stars
and swallowed a constellation
by mistake

the light made my belly ache
but I was not sad about
its disappearance

at the Loose Park picnic shelter
I gather loose thoughts
and listen to thunder

the cat sits on my shoulder
while I play the electric guitar
and tries to figure out where the sound is coming from

It's summer, and all the air-conditioners are crying
converting humidity into teardrops
24/7

In the heat of the day
kids pour buckets of paint
down the cement stairs that lead
to the Office Depot

in Brookside the streets are being repaved
an old lady gets stuck in the tar
on her way to fill ice-cream cones
and prescriptions

downtown is bogged down by big plans

we're staying planted
until the last non-condo stands

at 2 in the morning
the gaunt wild-haired kid
buys lollipops at the gas station
and rides his bike around for hours
fueled by 17-cent sweets

out on an all-night idea hunt, again
the truth we find at this hour
often requires translation
but right now there's no time

it's the eve of the tornado,
the eye of the party

sweating bullets amid the flower petals
the guitars tiptoe into earshot

a jazzman I mistook for a statue
starts playing taps
on the trumpet
before turning it into "Summertime"

the cicadas sound an end to summer

and someone chimes in
on an off-key honky-tonk piano
playing just around the corner
from everywhere I am
walking the moon
is full but out
of sight