The Raging Smolder Of Dahlias Poem by Joe Machetto

remember Charles Mingus?
cathedral ceilings?
Ava Gardner standing smoky
against a bar?
trains pulling into Grand Central
at the mercy
of drunken brakemen?

it doesn't matter much more
than a kettle's hum
in the all of things
as memories can be cold
and hollow inside
the gray fist of twilight

where you find yourself
having a cup of coffee
in an all night diner
read in a map of rainbows
while listening to buses
emerge from the dark
inside the city