Busker

One way or another I’m gonna get ya

to the city that never smiles

not even yellow cab drivers arguing

about who pays the Tribeca toll before

crashing at the Pennsylvania

just across from the Garden

I wonder if I can go the distance

before blowing my mind

as we walk and walk and walk

clutching cheap vodka disguised as lemonade

with blisters on feet all the way from Brooklyn

to where the towers have vanished

She gives me hope behind a dumpster

in the village of lost souls

in return for half a dozen beers and a trashy tee shirt

to go with that thousand yard stare and crocodile tears

I listen in faint disbelief

as I hear her say I’m not enough for her

and I smile at a dead body on the sidewalk

and think of home

which you don’t get anywhere else

© Ash Cheyne 2017