I heard you cry,
Saint John.
You played with pain,
Blowin a song
Only understood
By you
And the god
That whispered
A love supreme
To your soul.
He must have
Wanted you
In his band,
Tradin licks
With Gabriel,
After he heard you
Blow sweet salvation
At the Vanguard
Or Birdland.
Those were
Your cathedrals,
And your high mass
Was a forty-five minute set,
And you wailed
For those that had
An ear
To hear your gospel
Of tenor
And sympathy.
You left us too soon,
But you left behind
A little piece
Of epiphany
On the streets
To be picked up
By the junkies
And the poets
Who can feel
The voice
Of god
In your horn.

Life as a loser
Never changes,
It just moves
To a different place
And pretends
To put on a new
Jacket like an old record
That's scratched
And warped-
Evicted
Convicted
Afflicted
With some seething rash
From head to toe
Underneath the skin
Invisible to the naked
Girl in the leopard skin
Raincoat.  I feel like
A used rubber
As I watch
The headlights
Obscured by the snow.
My tracks itch
My head hurts
It all seemed
So good talking about it
But the reality
Stinks like a full cat box.
I'm too hard headed
To accept the fact
That I'm just tired
And I'm getting older
Every minute
No matter how you look at it.
It's only fantasy anyway,
Right? I mean
Everybody's fucked up,
Right? I mean
I don't know what I mean
I know I didn't mean
To get decaffienated beans
I just didn't see
The word,
But I heard someone
Talking about Jesus
And wondered why
There is so much
Misrepresentation
Misinterpretation
Manipulation
Of the facts of opinion-
Funny how things
Always get back to that
Even as morning
Always comes too early
Here in the expensive
Land of the free-
There doesn't seem to be
Much point since
Everything has such
A high cost
And right is only 
The opposite of left.
Just watch TV
And you'll understand
That Homer
Is King of the World
And everything
Is only $19.95.
I heard that
The air was bad
On the radio
Today.
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All poems copyright 1998 Kevin Crone