Damned if you do,
Damned if you don’t –
The cars speed forward
Though the drivers won’t
Over bridge too small
To go nowhere that far
When the tires are slashed
And the steering wheels robbed –
But the road’s not paved,
The lanes ain’t scrawled,
So it’s better to sit
And do nothing at all
On the corner of Holpe and Rune.
Past the outskirts of Sin City,
That wasteland deserving of pity,
A Man of the Day met a Lady of Night –
Their heads full of booze
Their hearts full of spite
And a perishing thirst to pour their lost plight
Under a freeway flickering,
Hidden from drivers snickering,
On the corner of Holpe and Rune.
They sat
Observed
Thought what to say
Considered again
And began:
“You look at me, a Harlot,”
Murmured the woman embittered
“With my sexy red dress
I seem a hot mess,
But I’d prefer a real rocket instead.
I’d ride it far
And shoot for the stars
Somewhere across the sea
Where I’d write for the kids
With the money I get
Doing the maximum jobs for their fees –
But since a drug bust
I’m reduced to lust
Since no one will hire me.
My body’s as good as I’ve got,
But my mind falls apart by the day –
I wish I could leave
This trash behind me
To become more than the empty man’s prey.”
“I might not seem a Lawyer,”
Laughed the man with a snort,
“Exercising my vice in a roll of the dice,
Where I lose half my winnings from court.
My wife left five years today,
And my child chose not to stay –
The courts failed me so
Why don’t I go?
There’s no sense in the job that you do
If it’s done only for you,
So I came here with dreams
Of the nightliving scene
And can’t count the days as they go
Through my pockets picked clean –
Now, I’ve started to yearn
I yearn for return
To the countryside –
To the home that I left in disdainful pride
Where I can suck out legalities that kill me inside.”
Their complaints were voiced in tune,
Drowning one another –
So, when all’s said and done,
It could be said neither one
Heard what was said by the other.
“Excuse me,
Did you say you were a Harlot?”
“I’m sorry,
Did you say you were a Lawyer?”
And so, shake hands,
Sellers of men
To prisons of two kinds!
A pact is made:
The man gets laid
To free her of courts and fines.
Arm in arm they sulk away
To waste their very souls away
Since there is no other way
But underneath that highway
At the corner of Holpe and Rune.
One was deaf to the other
While the other ignored the one –
For what can be said
When your dreams are all dead
‘Less you drag someone down in your stead?
By dismissing that voice in your head
Who says “Listen!”
Listen!
Though you drown him out, too, for what time have you
When your legs will not move
And your thoughts stick like glue
Or the gum on your shoe?
Thoughts covered in dust
With that Crook and his Slut
For the cars with slashed tires to come crashing soon
Through that corner near nowhere, between Holpe and Rune.
Morning's Early Dark 