There’s a gold-line interstate dancing through the state of mind, down through the snow storms of cotton willow seeds, to make your heartbeat freeze. 2x4’s hug the windows, and throw off the symmetry, of the three houses in a circle, where the town hall used to be… your grandma planted tobacco seeds. And the service played her lover “Taps” in 1943. And the money they sent home, bought her pills and some relief.
Oh Tennessee.
Tennessee.
Tennessee.

Seafoam green out of the corner of my eye with a windsor knot, sleeping in the window seat, on the windowsill perched like a crow waiting on the spoils of a burger and fries. Stupid whiskey flask follows me from town to town in my breast pocket navy blue with a 40-R in the hemline to let me know the mediocre, average life I should’ve traced along the stencil of… a greywash and black existence. Several openings in the vent by the window ran up my face in a reversal of every law Newton ever jotted on parchment paper and sealed with gravity and a drop of wax. He must’ve wondered about regular things often. Like emotion. He must’ve had it figured out. He must cook one hell of an Alfredo and win a lot of chess matches to tackle something like gravity.

A thousand night trains rattling through a wrestling match of junctions and burnt out- razed to the ash and soil as a field of maize in the dry season. Chaos. The lipstick from corner to corner were meticulously painted, a new hardware store in town. She reminded me of an article I read in the Baltimore sun about a woman who kidnapped herself to steady her supply of whiskey and cigarettes because her husband caught on to her taking money from his cash register at Rich’s Shoe Horn, a leather boot specialist in town right on the corner of Second and Hickory. I couldn’t trust her. Her chaos. I ran into two guys not from around here, wherever that is, with some fine lookin’ pinstripe suits and I automatically new they weren’t looking for grub or a shot of *****. Sometimes a guy won’t put his fingers on a cold bottle of beer, and that’s when you know fingerprints could become an issue later. I’ve seen it. Chaos. I’ve two-stepped chaos across the planks with the chairs up many a time. Shut off the neon, it’s time to nibble on the muzzle of a 38 until these guys dry you out like a broke *** ***. I just think of Bukowski every time they drain me for all my cash. I know it’s only going towards coke or some **** I’m not too fond of (due to past experiences). I’ve done it all. Chaos. Well, you don’t go into the pool hall business with dancing shoes and a three piece suit. Roll up them sleeves boy. It’s dirt. It’s grime. It’s…

Chaos.