Highland Drive

Highland Drive
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Highland Drive
Huey P. Long Pool
Miss Scarlett Laments
Dixie Denouement
Dixie Drag Act
The Copasetic Café
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Highland Drive

White linen on your back—
Black secrets on your mind
A path you tried to hide
A life you left behind…

Pastel dayz & neon nights—
The guilty hopes & alibis
Streets run red on Highland Drive
Can our love survive?

I’ve seen too many—
Of the wrong men die
For stealing their dreams
And buying time

In your eyes—
I saw the rising sun
Until I sold myself
For a badge & a gun

Huey P. Long Pool

“its haunting melodic,
penetrating perspicacity”
—John Wieners,
“Torch Song,” Behind
the State Capitol

Those exquisite evocations—
Yet somehow rather awkward
Bestial blowjobs up there
On the balcony at night

In her low-heels, ermine—
Lavish technicolor gown
Diamond starlight in her eyes
Young phantom in her arms

Paradise and ecstasy—
Shimmering pool down below
He disapproved of her demeanor
But she blew him anyway

Miss Scarlet Laments

“The piano rendition
and the professional
involvement are hopeful”
—John Wieners,
Torch Song

Our Miss Joan Crawford—
Queen Bee of early Fifties
Gives many evocative
Interpretations of drag

“You make a religion—
Out of a boring movie”
She says, no wonder
Her daughter so sullen

Mommy Dearest a bitch—
A two-faced femme fatale
Twisty as a weather-vane
Evening gowns, satin pumps

Dixie Denouement

“The blind see
only this world”
—John Wieners

Deep South rumors—
Miss Scarlet lady of means
Stately mansion from another
Era femme glamour star

Dixie trance make-believe—
A condition of gradual loss
The only thing left afterwards
The dumpy Huey Pool

All of yesterday’s youth—
Down in the mucky Pool
Fungus in the deep end
Dead queens in the Balcony

Dixie Drag Act

“one drag act
must directly lead
to another”
—Charles Olson,
Burlesque Poetics

Vieux Carré drag—
Quick flashback ditties
Solitary mint julep blues
The enigma of fame

Miss Faulkner in drag—
Transvestite Capote-esque
Mockingbird fag hag couture
Dead Miss Walker Percy

Stubborn resilient muse—
Swerving down the staircase
Norma Desmond queen bee
Sunset Boulevard revisited

The Copasetic Café

“I am acting out
the logical conclusion
of my books”
—John Wieners

A bookstore without books—
A vast library without words
That’s what it’s like at
The Copasetic Café

Poets come & go—
Up & down West Chimes
The traffic on Highland Drive
In & out of Tigertown

Highland Coffee House—
Their haunting voices reading
Dead poetry to us here
Along Highland Drive