Baltimore After Snow
In the black with chips,
And Baltimore never seems clearer than after snow.
That smell of the cigarette you just smoked seems to...
"Exactly." Muttered the man next to me.
Exactly, indeed.
But Mobtown didn't hold it for me this morning.
It let me down like never before today.
It all caved on me this morning in line at the bank.
A grandfather barked at his boy IN the bank.
I stood filling out papers for this move.
I stood.
And even with a sweater a chill shot to me.
"Shut UP! Shut the fuck UP!"
"Grandfather" and "fuck" aren't two words to join.
The boy was 3.
And Baltimore seemed hollow today.
Even in this snow morning with the taste of fluff.
Even with these new black chips.
Maybe it really is the people of this town that get me.
I start to smell the fake on them.
The passive pot smoking loser crew,
The time eating wasted college students,
The common coke snorting county kid,
The fake heel toes whore with no jacket in January,
The dockworkers and the nail painters ring true,
The guitar strummers and the forearm tattoos fall flat,
The art that drips only smells of mockery and not individuals.
The angered blacks and the sad browns,
The pitchfork crews that pick the worms,
The painful needle suckers and the fat cops.
The shit suits stained with New York failure.
They all came out to play this morning.
And more lately they all want to play.
They all want to guff my chin and cheeks.
I'm 28 years old and now I have to listen.
Now 50 and I are the same.
Now old men want to rely on me to bum smokes and buy them drinks.
Baltimore needs 28 year olds with ideas.
Baltimore died for me a little this morning.
A Grandfather by no name would be "Fuck".
