IT'S a jazz affair, drum crashes and cornet razzes
The trombone pony neighs and the tuba ******* snorts.
The banjo tickles and titters too awful.
The chippies talk about the funnies in the papers.
  The cartoonists weep in their beer.
  Ship riveters talk with their feet
  To the feet of floozies under the tables.
A quartet of white hopes mourn with interspersed snickers:
    "I got the blues.
    I got the blues.
    I got the blues."
And ... as we said earlier:
  The cartoonists weep in their beer.

Half close your eyes, and red and white
Become the colours of the night.
Distractedly observe the glow
Of laundrettes, chippies, chemists go

Flashing by the rain-streaked glass
And disappear into the past.
Green, amber, red, you nod your head
And twenty others sway in time.
A sordid stage, the characters
All acting out a complex mime
Of barriers that self contain
Each separate universe of pain.

Now focus in, and analyse
The backs of heads (can't see their eyes),
And wonder if they'll ever see
The night-lit, street-time poetry.

also called chippies
bird four to eight inches long        
wings are rounded, have short tails
the chipping sparrows

The band's bass player & principle songwriter,
William
Williams et al... saw Eli sitting alone at the bar;
He knew it was Simple b/c Eli Simple always wore
impenetrably dark shades; so did 99% of the faux
hipsters -
but still too terrified, "star struck,"
by the great painter already drunk & sobering up
the more he drank: Finally, getting his girl to approach
the artist, not "His" girl; a groupie that stuck to the
Uk's all tour; Eli didn't know her from a brick: She said
she'd do anything for no reason & the painter liked the
sound
of that.    Will watched them go off into black shadows
& after so long,  figured they weren't coming back.
He'd blown his chance to meet Eli Simple.

Eli had the habit of taking his chippies
"under his wing,"; he'd done w/ TT &
Hel, & a few others, he couldn't recall how
many or many of them at all ... some didn't
muster up, some died; some would have an
unforeseen blind
date w/ Leonard ... This one was chatty ...
when he absently set a thick vinyl platter
on the vintage turntable, common n Russia
& cranked the volume on DEATH POWER;
she became naked before his very eyes ...

They didn't talk for hours;
but they made a lot of
noise; but not a sound
could be heard ... over the
screaming neo-metal;
when the music abruptly
ended, she aught herself
loudly panting; Eli had mixed
something with his liquor
that made his body limp
but is **** as rigid
as a metal pole; she liked him.
He was rich, famous & cute,
& a Blackout Drunk ... & She
Snuggled His Taut Body, ||||||||
there on the floor. She nearly
leapt out of her skin when the
hypermonotonous metal blared
out again as the needle swung
back to the disk's beginning;
Reassured, she nestled beneath
Eli's arm, chunky, droning pitch
soothing her where she lay ...