GREENWICH VILLAGE, 1969

The neon 'Bar and Grill' can wink so cautiously Like a hooker slinking toward her man in blue His name is incidental like the color of his eyes As darkness falls, they disappear from view The subway serenades the tired boulevard Graffiti stammers out its vengeful rhyme Cold faces cling to storefronts, looking old and battle scarred In Greenwich Village, 1969 The widows rosary consoles eternity Novenas for her man who's lost to war She shakes her soul to Heaven at the cost of all she knows Then blows one final kiss and shuts the door The alleys are an anchor for the troubadours Those reckless harmonies and ragged lines The silence is a Pharisee, still looking for a sign In Greenwich Village, 1969 The poet in the temple howls his hollow plea The rebel drops his hammer by the tracks And the king retreats in silence to his whiskey-tainted grave As the children carve a legend named Saint Jack And through it all, in shuttered rooms The blind console the blind In Greenwich Village, 1969