9/7/17 2:48 PM
\"Hippie Hippie Hourrah\" -Jacques Dutronc, 1968
The old masters howl at me
Unfettered by plastic furniture, unstable and shoddy
Their words pour out of print and into my coffee
Making its dark heavenly caffeine go straight to my heart
Like church bells, the canal bridge rings out a warning and lifts
Letting through misplaced nomads and hobby ships
This town is loud
Each beater car screeching to let runners pass
Degenerates not unlike myself loiter and smoke
Bloody stumbling down sidewalks, past cheap beer and dreary antiques
This bridge has deeply inconvenienced the traffic
Stopping for five minutes at most
They swerve and run from the short delay
It\'s like they have places to be
Why do people move so fast?
The thrill of speed in this canal town does not come from automobiles in slow motion
It comes from the minds of the denizens
The tapout shirt wearing bike mechanics
The runners speeding by in tight shorts
The pretty women on longboards and xanax
The misplaced new yorkers trying to find concrete wildlife
The pretentious poet writing outside the coffee shop
Once the bridge lifted, the pause gave way
The screaming cargo trucks flew by
And once again ignored the operatic bustle
Of the canal\'s denizens