Me and Steve

I joke smoke peoples upstairs.

I don’t smoke pot on the spot or downstairs;

I hear crack is whack and meth is death and

even pot—it’s not what I got to smoke

I scheme, and I dream and I smoke peoples.

When Ken is here, I smoke peoples and I inhale;

the illegal people circulate through my body.

Steve, the sapient one, will leave decorations

in my lungs like for a suspicious Christmas tree

but smaller and less baller than for the taller, real trees.

It gets hot, and it’s not as colorful, it’s very dark.

Then I blow smoke kinda slow through my nose,

and they go out saying g’bye and hello. In a cloud of air.

I miss ’em yeah, but … yeah, they disappear.

It’s clever, and I never see them again.

But, it’s better if I never inhale; the peoples will stay

and play on my tongue. They don’t create stress.

They bless me with jamborees and get high as a giraffe

and laugh with me and anybody around them

just hanging out and banging out on drums.

I confess, they dress in the wildest

costumes and wear the craziest perfumes—I swear smell like streets.

They are good peoples but they are misunderstood peoples.

You have to kick ’em out so they won’t stick around.

They might get warts of sorts, and well you don’t want that.

If they go gray and go astray, well that’s okay because I can’t let ’em stay

too long, even if they have a strong song. They gotta leave

my mouth; they can live over on South Seven and Heaven.

They are not legal people I can evict them

so I can loop in a group of Cuban humans and give ’em time

to play a drum here on the slum of my tongue.

I’m too broke to smoke pot, but smoking peoples is as cheap

as falling asleep. Me and Steve play make-believe in my mind.