St. Louis River Rhythm town
Quincy Troupe bringing back stale memories
smooth as stones
worn over by the tide of my mind
Round, Smooth hard river stones
I remember being at the water side
where the parking spaces disappeared with the tide
& in the bridge shadow we stood
children of it's gothic architecture
Beneath the silver rainbow
we breathed footsteps in the cold night grass
As the riverboat casinos drank deep from
limousines and deeper from the women
Black, beautiful, young. Yet to be worn
by this shore which was not East St. Louis
I remember being in the university courtyard
open to the street, with green lawns
bright lights, stunning fountains &
eight members of the St Louis police Dept.
armed to the teeth and saying things like
Trespassing, detainment, asking for Id's ,
preventing a un-eventful hasty exit,
playing the asshole cop game, & asserting that if
any of us boys from LA was under seventeen
we wuz going spending the night in jail.
Worn river stone, with the jagged details smooth enough not to mention
smooth enough to wonder cold
I remember being in the heart of abandoned downtown,
two thirty in the morning, brakes overheated
"gimmie six dollars to get to the shelter!"
"can I see a light so I can go hit this?"
left fire and change with the crack head and moved further
Meeting two real cats, river rhythm blood
real in their eyes, just stepped down from
a George Clinton concert in a high-rise penthouse
. High and Friendly for the first time in a decade,
ready to help or meet us to pass the time
One of their friends (already drunk ) stands and says
"I'm gonna go get me some pussy"
When wishing him luck we find we doesn't need it
" I'm gonna pay my way so I know I will,
I'll hit that shit till she kicks me off."
We all as friends wish him luck again
& the shorter fatter Rhythm man bites the cap off of a beer
& explains that
"It won't cost him but six dollars, Everything here is six dollars.
Like clockwork. Because a hit of crack is six dollars,
I mean you can get PCP, heroin and speed. but crack runs the game.
A blow job is six dollars, and the only thing beggars ever ask for…"

The middle of the night a roundstone away
from both the jagged edges of the day,
a hard round river stone where I watched the skeleton buildings decay,
the grownmen get tickets for coping public urination
& the blues clubs vomiting people onto the street
this living writing river stone
as though turned up by the tide
back into my mind just as when
all I wanted to find was an onramp
Back onto the highway
The words of the mortal poet
Periscoping light around my minds corners
back to a city I left in the dark.