the dudes in dresses are making it impossible to sleep
once a year they put them on and stumble through the city
a sound truck goes down my street, playing a drunken standard
it sounds like theres people on the back, singing along
a string band marches down moyamensing avenue, a block away
playing "oh dem golden slippers"
they are doing strange and wonderful things with their saxophones,
squealing and trilling and making it their own
i cant get the cereal out of my head this time of year
the cereal with the same tune, reworked with their product name into the song
its hard to be sober in this neigborhood this time of year
the flattened beer cans and plastic cups are ankle deep in places all along 2nd street at the end of the night
mostly at the curbs
like snowdrifts
the ground crunches under foot and shifts as you walk or strut
like some weird polluted planet
the only remains the next day are miles multicolored silly string forming jackson pollock like masterpieces on the streets and sidewalks which remain months later
we speak a different language down here
a slurrier, wetter dialect,
peppered with equal parts profanity, sincerity and other raw emotion
tommorrow our heads will remind us that alcohol is a toxin

but tonight,
we mumm

each mumming at a different level and in their own manner
pure bachanalian group expression
a philadelphia love story