Streetcar Named Afire
Greasy sleazy swimming wet with sweat
like Brando's torn T-shirt clinging wringing
funky twisted sheets shimmering with heat
waves ringing the bed singing car alarm beeps
Can't sleep! Can't sleep! Can't sleep!
Tossing turning burning ... sauteed, flambe
fricaseed and broiled, steamed fried and roasted
barbequed in foil continuously basting
tasting salt drops chasing down my face in
permament hot flashes itchy icky sticky rashes
make me bitchy giant tea bag steeping not sleeping
antiperpirant leaking long ago turned pro in a
deodorant malfunction fungus forms between my toes
Please give me Extreme Unction!
Heat headache hammering police fire ambulance sirens
clamoring hip hop hooligans yammering in the street below
my window the wino takes a piss on concrete so hot you hear
it hiss-s-s-s-s-s like lava on the garbage strike stink stacked
high by the subway where the City's foul guts air rushes
gagging up the stairs to climb buildings and there
second-story in and vomit hazy, hot hellish smells
Help me Stella-a-a-a-a-a-a-a!!!
Steaming manhole covers leap like antelope under pressure
once you get to naked you can't go elsewhere but dreams
of plunging into pools of ice tea and lemonade wading
kneedeep in cole slaw my ice cream's now vichysoisse
so unlike Blanche Du Bois I prefer strangers unthawed
there should be a law against mercury's rise
past seventy-five stop this streetcar turn me over
I'm done on this side!
