He's alone, bandana-headed
down on Foreigner Street
with another girl
to starve his guilt away
his hand on a breast at the Vegas
dancing with fleet feet at the London Club
the boys from the boats
the big Russians laughing
their hands on a thigh
pawing their way through the whiskey night
the bar hostess from Seoul
who speaks good English
lives and dies on this street
knows how to charge you
just for a double of juice
how to suck money
out of your pocket one way or another
Tonight he'll sleep in a Yogwan
in the rooms behind the Hollywood
next to the Cebu Island boys
who've been at sea too long
he'll sleep with the big breasted girl
or he'll drunkenly dream he held her
in his tattoo needle arms
dream she really liked him
he'll empty his guts in the piss hole
pass out with the window open
sometime before daybreak
when the distant foghorn blows
Down the street
from the dancing girls
Dave drinks nightly
looks for an available man
Filipino she-male
at the outdoor tables
adjima serves maekju and a prayer
beneath her signs the psalms
cooks up burgers and mandu
pours the Siberian vodka
The GI's roll inside
while hostesses jostle
their little asses to and fro
table to table
the Russians don't mind ten dollar
for a piece of the action
it's cold up north
their bags and wallets full
of fur and new leather coats
they can piss the night away
snap photos in the street
to take it all back home
In the Baikal there's a dancer
she cannot move her tongue
has a hard time with the customers
the drunken sea-crazed sailors
but her long legs form a smile
as she twists and turns
spins round the clocks of Munich
hynotizes
washes their dreams away
Past the stalls rusulka walks
in shorts and powerful thighs
and the Russian merchants stare
as she swings her shampoo basket
up the swimming pool stairs
works out on parallel bars
to the sounds of Kim Gun Mo
then saunters back to the Baikal
when the summer sunset comes
and she dances on the tables
as the stars linger in the sky
The night reams coldly onward
even with a dozen cellphone numbers
tucked deep into his jacket pocket
a million young girls
can't wash this pain away
when the ships roll in
with a load of fish, they laugh
there's only tonight
not tomorrow on the rough sea
only the waitress bouncing
until the early morning light:
we are all pilgrims lost at sea
forsaken, pleasure seeekers all
losers, pimps and sabateurs
here to rape and pillage
until the daylight comes
seek the soju warmth of alley tents
the bush of another time
we've all been here before
a hundred times or more
but the songs keep coming
like angels from heaven, Black Velvet
another rounded breast to sweetly touch
she has brown hair, smiling, her face
breath to steal the sun forever from
the lungs of youth and time
just to say- yeah tonight
we lived, we did it
passed our time along the way
dug out our coffin strongly
into frozen ground;
in the morning
this song fades
a dying robin's last refrain
and then washes our dreams away
and she chases after rainbows
till she dreams her tears away
