It’s been a long time since I seen my baby
I’s doin’ fine till the waves’ wat’ry sheen
Hit me like the sight of my all-night lady,
The day she caught me, queen of common things.
It’d been a long day and I’d lost my taste for breathing
So I stumbled my way to the tides’ in-out
Rise and fall gather-release, and its briny seething
Crept in my lungs’ creases, inspired a fell shout:
I twirl’d me ‘bout, hands to sky, fell to sand,
Unable to stand the ground’s harsh feel
I clawed reeling at sky to deny the land…
Then above me she appeared, so real
With briny breath to flavor unsavored ideas;
Wave-shine gaze to corrugate all dull metal mental haze;
Root-firm hands that delve through false-floor sterile veneer
Through fearful surface to grasp hidden, solid ways;
Hands that suddenly grasped me by my sailing palms,
Tugged me to gasping feet and flailing thoughts as my heart raced to keep up
As she dragged me smilingly to give thanks and alms
Through acrimonious, grungy alley’s blues-rock and hubbustling boulevard’s bebop
Of people like pebbles jostling through a landslide.
On a stroll like a cyclone we took the town by storm
Taking objects in our path with such force in our minds
That they took on new life, from freezing wrath to bliss-hued warmth.
Plastic tatters flagging the breeze from brightly barbed fence
Were transformed into hula skirt for the vain
As she crowned me king of uncontainable nonsense
With thirteen steely links of newly broken chain…
Somehow, after so long balanced by her passion spell
I lost her in the clenched teeth grind of the crowd’s respiration
So now I stand drenched on the shore of despairing pell-mell
And can only chant this disintegrating song’s aspiration:
Return, my love!
It’s been a long time since I seen my baby
I’s doin’ fine till the waves’ wat’ry sheen
Hit me like the sight of my all-night lady,
The day she caught me, queen of common things.
