vatchel

vatchel lindsay
lindsay lindsay
you were a liar
and a drunkard
and above all
a poet

people paid
to watch you
in theaters your
higher vaudville
as you called it
BOOM BOOM
BOOM

treking across
the wastes
of middle america
with no money
paying with spoken
words

and then after
hitting your zenith
years of slowly
going down down
a star like lucifer
now just a tin plated
phony

america dumbed
further and further
by the depression
you grappled
with children and
family debts

vatchel lindsay
on one afternoon
drank lysol
"those bastards wanted
to get me --
but i got them first!"

but i will always
remember you
by that one photograph
arm out head back
hips cocked
wracked in
poetic ecstasy

vatchel lindsay
i could be
like that

vatchel lindsay
lindsay lindsay
i have been
like that