V

We shared a house by the freeway w/ roaches
a retired cat burglar & our doubts.

Our only friends were the bums on the Ave.
They took us in as their own.

For a month I was stuck in their dialect, afraid
I'd never speak like a white boy again.

Billy was a hobo once, lord knows he paid his dues.
He had a fatal weakness, called it the blues.

He was just a roly poly broke down old Indian bum,
happy as Pooh bear & always twice as stoned.

He was tone deaf drunk or sober,
but he taught me a lick or two.

Yellowhawk was a painter & a Lakota shaman,
carried a brush in his hat band like a feather.

We knew at once we were kin w/out blood.
Our symbols & our stories were the same.

His pictures had the mastery & mystery of Les Trois Freres,
sacred scenes that spilled from him & splashed across the page.

We spent a night on the mountain, once,
swattin' skeeters & swappin' tales.

When Jeff went home, I lost the pad. The last time I saw him
I was making drunken passes by the railway tracks.