The ragged and the chic

Stories of the ragged,

portraits of the chic,

hard guys, whose youth

was boiled off their faces

by the street.

The girls and women,

who present themselves

as meat.

One who i'll name Jasmine

-for convenience sake

sports a micro miniskirt

and high-heeled silver sandals.

Just above her slender ankle,

a tracking device is locked.

Who is at the other end of that?

police or immigration?

She doesn't try to hide

her electronic leash

from the public eye,

her confidence, supreme.

Jasmine checks her lipstick

with the camera of her phone

waiting for the walk signal to change,

ignores the lewd

suggestions from the hard guy

perched on the empty fountain

drinking from a bottle

scarcely hidden

by a fast food paper bag.

She struts across the street,

off to some appointment

up the hill, where the noon shift

at the strip clubs will soon begin.

The hard guy takes a final swig

and drops his bottle on the sidewalk

bends down to see what he can see

up Jasmine's skirt for free.

Worlds seen through glass

That moment on the street

eyes frozen in mid blink,

a swirl of skirt forever trapped

by light on silver emulsion

when the shutter snapped.

I seek my self reflected

in dark panes of glass,

that young man

on the sidewalk of the past.

In that world as insubstantial

as the clouds behind me

drifting across shop windows

with their seductions:

Sunny escapes and picnics,

cutting a glamorous figure 

in bathing suits or blazers,

second hand guitars,

engagement rings,

and watches pawned

to pay some strained

person's rent or dire habit.

Cities seen through glass

float like memories or dreams,

weightless as the years

that vanished too quickly.

Moments trapped

on flimsy strips of plastic ,

granules of silver nitrate

reacting to the light.

Ted

Zachary Theodore Ferguson,

who goes by Fergie or Zack,

but never by Ted,

rolled off the bed,

roused from sleep

by the crepuscular cries

of the peacocks

who had multiplied

into a multitudinous flock

in this bucolic burb.

Before he hit the floor,

still deep in a dream,

their cries had seemed

like a whole harem screaming

in a massive, synchronized,

simultaneous orgasmic creaming.

When his hard-headed noggin

hit the hardwood planks

with a bounce and a knock,

his lascivious reverie

was dashed to an

unceremonious end.

No bevy of beauties

in diaphanous silk,

writhing in ecstasy,

moaning, oh Fergie,

sighing, oh Zack.

Just a flock of obnoxious fowl,

announcing the morning

who now seemed to be crying,

it's time to get of of bed, Ted.

Popsicles

I waited in the last hot rays of sunset,

inking little monsters in the margins

of my notebook, as the ice in my jellyjar

full of Old Crow melted quickly.

Another day, anonymous,

another page to fill with babble.

The valley's breath was scented

with the medicinal reek of junipers.

Like hers had often been,

gin-rickied and jolly

-before she left.

Some where down the hill,

an ice cream truck

piped that eternal jingle:

Turkey in the Straw.

Forever promising

grape popsicles

and purple tongues.

Like hers. Poking it out

and laughing before

she'd slip it in my mouth,

still chilled and sweet and sticky.

I watched a pair of vultures

spiral round each other,

shrink into specks,

then closed my eyes.

I felt a shadow on my face.

her, here, awaited. silent.

Hair gray and prison short now.

Tie-dyed harem pants

clinging to those

once familiar hips.

She smiled for a moment,
then stuck out a purple tongue.