NIGHT OWL by Jeff Callaway

NIGHT OWL
by jeff callaway



and so now I know

I can always catch that

night owl

back home from downtown

when I'm 2am broken and haggard

from a bender or a foul

and I've always gotten home

safe and sound

from Sixth Street

when its so late and so loud

and in the liquor

I've almost drowned

but I guess I've always been

a night owl

ever since I was five years old

and I set free my caffeinated soul

and awoke every morning to a hot cup a joe

with lots of sugar

lots of cream

in my cream of wheat

TV malt o meal mornings

of before school early mornings

with Mommy

the Three Stooges

with Bugs Bunny

I'm all full of coffee

because even as a kid

I'd spend all night long rocking

and so I needed that extra boost

to get my schoolwork up off me

but it was nothing like it is now

as a girlfriend starts another pot of coffee

and I smoked forty seven cigarettes yesterday

and the coffee pot hoots

like a Benzedrine train whistle

and I'm just another poet

in this Austin, Texas

is a zoo

and I'm Banzai Buckaroo

hoot hoot hoot

through every coffee shop on Guadalup'

plus Ruta Maya's even open til two

and there really is nothing

like coffee after a night of cold brews

and a pack of Marlboros too

as my head it just soothes

in such smooth

buzzing blissful toffee

man what can I say

I mean I really love coffee

so get off me



copyright jeff callaway 2005