Notes From The Overground

Running like hell The El kicks out trash & dust down the dirty streets of Chicago
Chases around corners with the stale smoke of mourners & the sunrise vigilance
It is a heads-tails chance that you wake up in your own bed
Mother’s Father’s cross above your head & a two day old glass of gin
Bed sheets stained with afterbirth of the magnificent monster Jamison
Yearbook photo blown-up life-size on your wall, that chin with those marvelous eyes!
The pretty little panty size of the hole & the key
The starry sky LP you danced to at prom & lost your brother’s hard-fought virginity to
Piss into a cup for your union card & smoke 100% tar
From the shit bubblegum streets, neato 8-track sound & blue mascara eyes

It’s the street step sticky like mucous stained black sidewalk that reciprocates
Creeping nose like fatty beef & fingers crooked serenades
Out of the corner of your eye you glance the head in the lap, man stands up
Woman kneels down, green as gold in these lean times
Beggars would rather a dollar than a draft, you give wonderworld excuses
Vagrant sighs, pay rent on time if you can hustle another daytime job
Nighttimes filled up by the hunger pangs & fangs of deliberation about nothing
In particular, forgetting to call home, pay the bills & the other calendar day lifestyle choices
Another 1% interest & that credit card is going to look just like your birthday month

Picking pockets is about the sleight, look one way, reach another
The jingle-jangle Christmas bells of street Santas in Chicago sound like an off-tempo rhythm
1-stop-2-stop-3-stop-4-stop waiting for a cab as you spy hands reaching into valuable holes
Don’t stop thinking about no tomorrow as you spy piles of shoelaces burning in the trashcan
It is virulent this subtle almost being that infects negative GDP & all the petty larceny
Of foot soldiers pounding Circle & Mason selling chocolate bars with peanuts & without
For their fake charities, might do better good driving down the waterway throwing out dimes
Giving proper change plus 10% for every time you see a mother & daughter split clothing in two

Al’s #1 Beef serving up artery-hardening sliced thin beef sandwiches & hand cut fries
With “Best Pizza In Chicago” on every corner & leftovers sitting atop the trashcans
Universities a stones’ throw from soup kitchens with dignity & heart, you start now!
You only get one chance to eat everything in sight while the moon comes early
Finding yourself ducking into the alleyways & sidestreets & wouldn’t it be cool
If you found THE PLACE no one has ever been too, for your next birthday party
Instead of TGI Friday’s like Mr. Magorium’s Wonderful Food Emporium

Damn straight it’s Irish whiskey as you forget your family tree & limp across the cement floor
Drain the snake in a corner where you find a hole in the ground, leading to the cellar
Stocked with 30 year scotch passed down from generation-to-immediate generation
Fiercely opposed to delayed gratification, give it now, fuck it now, eat it now
Fights sit right up there on the wooden walls as great emissaries bringing news of failures
Dollar buys a shot of Budweiser & other formerly American beers

Fuckin’ love the Bears!, Cubs are going all the way, I got season tickets
I’ve got a reason to get up early on Sunday after I pinched the ass of the waitress on Saturday
Wrigley Field sits unreal on the Blue line tracks pulling you in magnetically
It is the science of seep routing for the home teams, buying jerseys, painting your face
A ruby red, navy mess that looks like you punched yourself

You can see them on the streets, round bellies, self-fulfilled gullets, meaty faces
Carrying bags that don’t tell, walking with a forward favor & smoking cigarillos
That never touch their fingers, porous lips & yellow fingernails, Payless shoes
Buying everything from boutique convenience mart stores, Lake Erie beer

Trade shot for story, trade whiskey for rent, trade temporary salvo against aggressive landlord
For a reason why you fell off the wagon, it is lonely at the bottom, we will join you there
We want the same things, interest on our savings accounts & a roof over all heads

There is no more argument about what is right but simply what is
I will assist you with the thesis, Willis Tower just doesn’t sound right so whittle away at its corner stone

Walk the streets day or night & you will find yourself in the shining stone inevitable
© Adam Bresson

There is a place on a map called Euless Texas, rules include naming your truck after a long dead lady country star, who went to jail when she said she robbed that liquor store out on 183rd, but sang Aretha Franklin like a songbook, after five straight-up Red Eagles, looked at herself in the mirror, looked & said, you don’t live in Euless Texas
© Adam Bresson

Wickedly wet liver
Soaked for lack of living
Soaked for a sotted giver
Weighs a ton & ways onward
The special things that are gone toward
And the death of the run-up to The Suffocate
Gold-guilded bracelet & stoplight jewels

An OC evening on plasticine deck chairs
And so that song’s gotta play
And so I’m gonna stay right here frozen
It’s a bitter still of nighttime
And the evening’s wrong for all of this
Red button pushed & hardened minutes ago
Offers an escape hatch & expired parachute to the loud neighbors

There’s still time to pull the plug, baby
Forget to cut the branches back on the family tree’s names
Forget to roll the dice & stack the odds
Handshake, thankless wanting & alarm clock ranting
To the dogs or whoever’s going to be the shoulder
To lie on, breaks the back & teaches your tricks
Waking up on New Year’s to a bloodied mess

Once I will let you call me by my middle name
Talk about the future like the present is the past
Talk about our numbers, lovers & letters
Re-teaching the order till it echoes & admonishes
Twice I will tell you the city & street I grew up on
My tiny silver suit & pink paisley tie
Fat metal braces & black & blue shut eye

Good for god & blue-light intercourse
Candelabra fingertips with star-finished nails
Candelabra fingertips when all else leaves
Vertical verdict comes down all horizontal
But still we crave hot dogs with green relish
And carrot cake from hilltop bakeries
Evil 1-2-3 so very jealous, you & me, of early bedtimes

Wake up conscientious & little strings & things
All over the 10 year carpet floor
All over a bed close to the ground for lazy leverage
Salvage titles with Nevada tags & plates
An elephant hanging right on the shoulder
Leaves the fire smoldering in the front temporal lobe
Responsible for eternal sunshine of the spotted mind

Take 19th street to the end of the yellow brick
I need a duvet cover with white-on-white flowers
I need a picture frame with symmetrical pink hearts
Commit the artifacts to a shelf then catalog
Curate & float belongings to belong somewhere
And flat-out drive home in the fogged dead of night
To resist roots & brave another half-life sunrise
© Adam Bresson

Broken arm summer
Where I put the pins in
And reset the bone
With drunken days &
Seekless night
Stumble on & stupid fights
Your mighty 3-1-0 N.M.O.

Almost said & choked up head
Sunday morning calling to say goodbye
To Brillo cream & little eyes
And all the friends that look like you
Winter flu, upside down
False stops & parking lot tickets
Your mighty M.O.

Was to leave me white undershirts & children’s shampoo
Door unlocked, bedtime inquisition &
My favorite lamp insignificant silver fleck
Misstep in the dark for locks & topic stops
Citations to precedence of three year tragedy,
Second act tree top, first time shaking off
Your mighty O.
© Adam Bresson

Davi come on!, sing that song with your suit jacket on & vagina beard!, dumb-ass pseudo emo that is vaguely self-referential already is last year’s summer song, you jerked off to it in the mirror while “Friends” S08E01 played on your brand new CRT, which one of the three got you off?, you nailed the melody but in the wrong key, “you’re going down, down, in an earlier round,” things that rhyme
© Adam Bresson