The Empress Hotel

I'm at least a week late posting this due to technical difficulty.

Crossed the lazy lady
where she runs wide and brown
Checked into the
Empress Hotel
into a room so small
they can't all read at the same time
so he sits in the corner
drinking his way into
New Orleans

Angels setting up shop
on the street
with broken wings
and old bicycles.

With worn boots
and holes in his socks
only a sip of beer
in his glass
his feet ache with age
and 200 plus pounds

His knees ache
and it's about to rain on his parade.

The French Quarter
never sleeps
the party never dies
Larry Flint's girls
on swings in the windows
of temptation and lust.

She calls to him
through rotten teeth
as she reaches for the dance pole
she gives up
to pool on the stage.

He awakes red eyed and red faced
on the floor
of their 12x12 hotel room
Hungover
in shit to his knees.
his only recollections
Bourbon street, The Hustler Club
and a girl on their balcony with
a hula hoop

Born empty
and stolen identity
and stumbling hard
he eats alligator and nearly pukes
His teeth float
all the way to Ursuline street
back to the Empress
where the girl in the foot tall heels
walks away
where he sleeps
on a deflated mattress
on the floor

Red eyed beneath a voodoo doll.