Ludus – Playful Love

“Lived in bars and danced on tables
Hotels, trains and ships that sailed
We swim with sharks
And fly with aeroplanes in the air”
-Cat Power
.
Nights and mornings swimming in carefree sunshine
free poured, not from the gun.
Stained with warm tobacco
The scent of green drifting from small purses
Cooled with bitter powder and pills
.
We made cash disappear in to thin air
then reappear, doubled and burning in our pockets.
Rolled dice for jukebox money
Sweated and soaked our hands in bleach water
Tried our luck
.
Our happy crowd was covered in paint, mud, pancake syrup and dried eggs.
One up, one down
Windfalls and shirts lost
Payday, Saturday night’s top buttons undone to reveal
a gold chain,
the hope of sex
Crown Royal shots dashed in hash marks
The motion of swirled ashes in the clean ash tray
.
I walked the whole city from downtown to the north side.
I walked side by side with giants that saw the sea.
Ate every meal at restaurants
I chose between one destiny or the other, seated unwittingly side by side at the pulltab counter,
and brought food to ladies who stretched their legs on the sidewalk posts in the night.