“get up outta bed Beth Ann (while bongin bass riffs come up thru the cracks in the floorboards), we're goin downtown fer shoes!”

Friday morning any morning

center median of the crossroads people,

beat and cadence very downtown,

positively steady,

balanced by the wishbone pretzel arch,

framed by Gaslight Square brokebrick free radio doorways.

songs from this City of clothesline radios,

City of 1953 eternally parked Hudsons

rusted, derelict on Laclede Avenue,

City of underground backporch lighthouse brigades.

this City, home to the hip “say whaa, Louie?” palookas

sometimes passin as indescribable junkmen

gagged and stoned upstairs with the Music.

this City of the next inevitable swallow

kickin in the next Mississippi chain reaction.

this City of ballads

praising the opening of the flood gates,

America's River City washin away the offal and our sins.

these songs are for St. Louis

city on the shore of two Rivers,

songs of goin downtown for shoes.

11/6/73