The stage is ablaze
with cigarette smoke.
Brass finger keys howl
from the sax man
tapping gold from Gabriel’s horn.
Alley cats sing the nine lives
to back room shadows where
Tom Waits breaks the words
from jumbled unwashed dreams
and Ginsberg works the beast
from his pen while Kerouac
reaches for starry nights over Lowell.
The stage fills the void. Everyone
is fed by the appetite of thought.
