Love Song From The Ledge

Craig James Ackerman

Mid

Western

Front

Records

2018

 

The crust has begun to form along the edges of my innocence.

Like a vinyl tablecloth at an old Italian restaurant.

Used to be bright, red and hopeful.

Now dull, faded and nihilistic.

Grasping at the last fleeting straws of pigment.

Generations late of change.

Soon to be folded up and replaced.

A memory relegated to the dumpster.

Thrown away with the day old spaghetti.

Forgotten before it could ever be remembered.

A love song from the ledge.

Only heard by the wind.

 

I’ve sang love songs from the ledge.

Screamed sonnets into the wind.

Backed up on floppy disks.

Scribbled down on the back of old pay stubs.

Deposited and spent.

Used the sheckles to buy more pens.

Write more verses about desperation.

Regret and empty bottles.

Maybe this one will win her back.

Fill in the holes I left in the narrative.

Straighten out the plot lines that were twisted.

The ending I was too scarred to finish,

The back story was a hack.

Like moth balls in a thrift store suit.

A love song from the ledge.

 

The patriarchs and the despots.

Blues bloods and laborers.

Gathered elbow to elbow at the local tavern.

Someone is crying back by the pinball machine.

A cheers goes up at the bar.

Cheap beer spills onto the dirt covered floor.

Worn down by the shoes of the lonely.

A song from the past hangs in the smoke filled air.

A melody that sounds old to most but new to some.

I’m sitting at the corner of the bar.

Reminded of a generation ago.

When hope wasn’t just another thing you hung up with your Carhartts at the end of the day.  

 

All the bravado is false.

Born under dead streetlights.

Foggy downtown nights on the boulevard south of the river.

Salvation should be sold on the street corner.

Next to the weekly local rag.

Across from the pharmacy that sells hot peanuts.

Watch batteries and penny candy.

Home is just a dream you once had.

A love song from the ledge.