Arrival At the City of the Living Dead

ARRIVAL AT THE CITY OF THE LIVING DEAD

When I first arrived in Tampa,
The city of skulls and bolita balls.
I found everyone was buried,
only their heads stuck out of cement graves,
so they stuck out their tongues
to rub across lipstick smeared on a beer bottle
shaped to resemble Helen of Troy’s
adolescent lips.
It was a city of warped billiard balls
and homebrew in the back room
behind swinging doors
with over-peppered chili sold up front.
It was the city of the short half-pint
and hair tonic with fifty percent alcohol.
The voting booths were surrounded
by barbed wire and sawed-off shotguns.


Duane Locke

Posted over on Art Villa