The S.S. Admiral
Apr 20 2011 Filed in: Jims Poems
The S.S. Admiral
The Admiral casino
Is a five dollar whore
Of a riverboat, no engine, roped
To the St. Louis levee
Where the unprivileged class
Shreds paychecks
Into hanging chads.
Numb and cheerless gamblers
Breathe stale smoke
And whisky by the slots,
Where they curse their luck
And stub out cigarettes
On their hearts.
I remember a different Admiral
From more innocent times,
Nighttime excursions
And the great piston arms
Of the steam engines,
Calling to the dark shores
Of the Mississippi
Calling for admiration
From jealous unseen eyes.
The Mississippi was our great sea,
The George Washington
Of American rivers,
Muddy like chocolate
And smelling of the lost dreams
From a thousand farms.
The river was alive with aroma,
A flowing, breathing plantation.
Yeasty smells from the great breweries,
Sweet poisons from
The chemical factories,
The odor of stockyard cattle
And barbecue smoking up
The black skies of darkening neighborhoods.
On the river we smugly escaped mosquitos,
And made a breeze to push away
The smothering humidity
Of our lives.
In those days the Admiral
Moved up and down the river
With its shiny, aerodynamic aluminum skin,
Like a monument from the naval battles
Of the Civil War.
People rhumbaed in the ballroom,
Shaking wax on the dance floor,
I was young then, and explored the ship
Imagining myself Huckleberry Finn,
On a raft drifting to a dreamland
Called New Orleans.
The wake of the riverboat
Swelled like the ocean
A brown maelstrom of churning water.
The waves sang to me of the river
And the city’s greatness.
They told me to stick with
White people.
They told me to watch my step getting off,
For the water was dirty and swift.
They told me not to break my ankles
On the levee stones.
Before my time the steamboats
Lined up like old Cadillacs
Along the banks of the river,
Bales of freight were scattered on these stones
Like carnage at Omaha Beach.
Once upon a time there was life here.
Now the dead Admiral
Is a floating tombstone,
A stuffed carcass
Denied the dignity
Of a proper burial.
Like my memories,
That remain
Like motionless zombies
At the slots.
The Admiral casino
Is a five dollar whore
Of a riverboat, no engine, roped
To the St. Louis levee
Where the unprivileged class
Shreds paychecks
Into hanging chads.
Numb and cheerless gamblers
Breathe stale smoke
And whisky by the slots,
Where they curse their luck
And stub out cigarettes
On their hearts.
I remember a different Admiral
From more innocent times,
Nighttime excursions
And the great piston arms
Of the steam engines,
Calling to the dark shores
Of the Mississippi
Calling for admiration
From jealous unseen eyes.
The Mississippi was our great sea,
The George Washington
Of American rivers,
Muddy like chocolate
And smelling of the lost dreams
From a thousand farms.
The river was alive with aroma,
A flowing, breathing plantation.
Yeasty smells from the great breweries,
Sweet poisons from
The chemical factories,
The odor of stockyard cattle
And barbecue smoking up
The black skies of darkening neighborhoods.
On the river we smugly escaped mosquitos,
And made a breeze to push away
The smothering humidity
Of our lives.
In those days the Admiral
Moved up and down the river
With its shiny, aerodynamic aluminum skin,
Like a monument from the naval battles
Of the Civil War.
People rhumbaed in the ballroom,
Shaking wax on the dance floor,
I was young then, and explored the ship
Imagining myself Huckleberry Finn,
On a raft drifting to a dreamland
Called New Orleans.
The wake of the riverboat
Swelled like the ocean
A brown maelstrom of churning water.
The waves sang to me of the river
And the city’s greatness.
They told me to stick with
White people.
They told me to watch my step getting off,
For the water was dirty and swift.
They told me not to break my ankles
On the levee stones.
Before my time the steamboats
Lined up like old Cadillacs
Along the banks of the river,
Bales of freight were scattered on these stones
Like carnage at Omaha Beach.
Once upon a time there was life here.
Now the dead Admiral
Is a floating tombstone,
A stuffed carcass
Denied the dignity
Of a proper burial.
Like my memories,
That remain
Like motionless zombies
At the slots.