Imagine how many people
Have fallen temporarily in love with you
On the train
On the street
In the car
In your room
Or after you'd fallen in love with them.

There's an old house up on Jennings Street
In a yard so overgrown, you can't see your feet
A vine grows up the side and a shed near the back
With a door that doesn't meet the frame and track.
A hole in the roof, houses a family of Bluejays
Who chirp and play as the world passes by
Babies jumping off that same roof, learning to fly
Untaxed by the society seen in people eyes.

Some say it's haunted, others say just condemned
But inside those cryptic walls is a place few have been
Once you've entered, time stands very still
Every creak tells a story and the air is thinner with a chill.
Musk and dust cover where a family thrived,
Before this technology that made us so unalive.

I wouldn't dare to move a single thing
I bring only what my eyes recall.
This place was not my place, not even my time
In a body I only borrow, who am I to call anything mine?
Others blinded by greed, believe they are owed this history
So as I left this house I locked the door, to save the mystery.
There's an old house on Jennings Street
Leave it be, it's perfect.

Back behind Gianni's
There was no one to be found
The alleyway was quiet
You could not hear a sound

The frost had not yet burned off
The alleyway was wet
The deliveries had not been made
No one was moving yet

In the sky  a rarity
Both sun and moon were out
But seen by just night creatures
Since no one was about

The back window to Gianni's
Opened to where Jim slept
There was garbage in the doorway
Since it had not yet been swept

The moon was getting lower
The sun just in the sky
The silence was then broken
By a blackbird flying by

The bird woke up the Bluesman
with his early morning call
And he watched the Bluesman set up
Perched up high upon a wall

The Bluesman had his guitar
Wiped some moisture off  his crate
Another blackbird landed
A rat peeked out from a drain grate

The Bluesman started playing
Singing low, just barely heard
More animals were showing up
And they took in every word

His medicine beside him
In a flask, engraved "For Dad"
His voice was smooth and smoky
You could hear him, just a tad

More birds came for the concert
More rats, some squirrels too
No humans yet were moving
In the early morning dew

He sang as he was known too
To no one special, just the sky
Songs of revelation
Songs of watching people die

The small flock that had gathered
Watched The Bluesman, moved a bit
As he took sips from his medicine
Not a single song...a hit

The world was just now waking
But The Bluesman didn't care
He was doing what he always did
Singing softly to the air

Normally, the street would fill
As word would spread around
That the Bluesman was out playing
But, today...no one was found

The window to Gianni's
Let Jim lie in bed and dream
That he heard the Bluesman singing
In his room, on a sun beam

The birds all flew away at once
The was movement in behind
Life was coming to the street
Where at night the vermin dined

The Bluesman packed his kit up
Snuck away from the day light
To sleep and rest his weary bones
To venture forth again that night

The rats went to the sewers
The birds had flown away
The squirrels, they were also gone
And the street began it's day

Jim looked out his window
The alley empty, no one thee
Where while Jim thought he was dreaming
The Bluesman sang songs to the air

An early morning concert
Full of music, 'neath the sun
A concert heard by many
A concert just for one

you danced
in dark silent streets
letting icy snow
fall like tacks
on your tongue

caught in a dreamy pirouette
your arms out wide
in surrender to the heavens

beyond pale streelights
your eyes to the sky
reigning down upon you

snow falling like
a slurpee spilling onto the tile floor
of a 7-Eleven
our boots sloshing through it

your three-year absence
from it
ends with a nostalgia
and an innocence
you felt you lost

yet it descends upon you again
as you twirl
under snow like tacks
on your tongue

Dry hair
Dry skin
Hopes are dead
and their dead bodies are also dried

I wish God should come down now
and save your watery smile
before it shrinks
and vanishes
somewhere in our dry sleepy minds  

But why
whenever my eyes see you
either you are alone
or in the arms of
not a mother like mother
I wonder
whether hunger had murdered
love of a mother  

I wonder
whether you come to this world
without a father  

Or somewhere  
watery eyes of your mother
wet heart of your father
are still waiting
and praying for your comeback
without knowing
a dry YOU
is dying without water

A grille
about grease
that string
If she's
only a
remnant where
those cars
were too
fast and
nights were
long and
days with
times that
children played
then here
along my  
street again.