Hanging With The Devil

I hung out with the Devil on Manhattan's Lower East Side Had a toke of poverty long, slow, heavenly inhale The hobos burning dreams 'round a trash can full of fear Anesthetizing homelessness 'neath a cold, dark scrapered sky Pimps and whores were ticking business like Wall Street whackers on the Stock Exchange Longing Johns laid with riches seeded in the backs of black-glassed shiny white limos The tenements lurched in the chains of their indignity shutters cracking in the wind Babies crying, dogs barking unheeded or unheard And when I asked the Devil what tunes he'd like to hear boom-boxing with the fumes of brake-dancing automobiles He smiled in his ghoulish way with a glint of fire in his eye and said 'Gospel.' (Previously published in MiPo Magazine, Winter 2004)