Song based on the poem "Prisoner of Loneliness" by A.D. Winans


Spike Sikes, A San Fran blues singer sings this song based on the poem "Prisoner of Loneliness" by A.D. Winans, with a nod to his old friend Kell Robertson.

Strange Dreams

STRANGE DREAMS

strange people have taken over
my body, shameless homesteaders
who stake their claim
like old time California gold miners

the men are elderlywith grey beards
and drive horse and buggy carriages
the women wear dresses
that hug the floor
there are no children, no dogs
just one black cat with a pointed tail


the town cryer
keeps me awake all night
a court jester roams at will
through my dreams

a king dressed as a queen
winks at me
an army of red ants
crawl inside my head
a monster lies under my bed
feasts on the living dead

a midget woman courts my favors
offers herself in twenty-eight
exotic flavors

we make love in a sea of hot lava
the night collapses like
a building under the weight
of a bulldozer

I am summoned to appear before
a military tribunal
my good conduct medal called
into question

a rip tide tears at my brain cells
my landlord cancels my lease
the trial winds up in a hung jury

the baliff writes down
his phone number
tells me to give him a call
he has a hot three-some
he thinks I might be interested in

The son of Freankenstein
shows me the way to the roof top
where down below
a faceless mob waits
with pitchforks and fire bombs

a drummer boy from the civil war
works his way into my heart
Betsy Ross hands me a confederate flag
the ghost of John Wayne sounds
the bugle charge
the night an insatible nympth
feasts on a  bed of fallen stars

Brain Scan with Thoughts Attached

Poem: Brain Scan with Thoughts Attached

Back from an MRI
Brain Scan
I listen to a Miles Davis album
Black Hawk San Francisco 1962
Where a young Latina and I
Grooved on the vibes

Here at home
Jazz in my head jazz in my bed
Jazz waking up the dead
Miles, Charlie Parker, and Lester Young
Serenade an army of poets
Sitting on my bookshelf

T.S. Eliot playing the banker
Walt Whitman walking the battlefields
Williams Carlos Williams suturing wounds

Kaufman walking the 
streets of New York
Juggling a “Golden Sardine”
Sings a duet with Billie Holiday

Blake playing cards with God
Lorca playing Russian Roulette
Micheline dancing with Mingus
Gary Snyder building word bridges
Me doing a tango with a fallen angel
And suddenly I’m not alone anymore
The words falling like soft rain
In a winter green garden