All of these things in my head that I wish I hadn't seen, have been seen.  What's done has been done.  I'd ask for heaven's help, but I wouldn't want my mind to go blind.  I'll  wait out here for the angels to finish their game.  The weeks in which I have done wrong would amuse them.  They're tripping on their paradise and that's not a place where  I want to set my shoes.  I see through that lot.
        
Jackie is always talking about the big pie on high.  She's left me standing out in the hall while she banters about with the heavenly hosts looking to beguile.  Johnny Falls is down on the street more gone than I've ever seen him.  I think that a new day will do us good, but that's the kind of shine on the time slop that everyone says in the middle of the night.  Johnny Falls' black wings have been flapping since the church bells struck sunset.  He's singing, cracked voice, and it's getting to me.  You can hear it way up here on the fifth floor.  Jackie won't let me get in on her games, leaving me out here to nod off on the river roll and free fall in revelries of that gone May day.  If that day had skipped over April's skull I probably would have never hit the city.  I got out.  Here I am, simple as that, up here in the heights, fifth floor looking down.  Here, there, just like probably almost anywhere, or at least anywhere I've been.  The church bells keep on ringing the hours on and on, but no one gives those time clocks a good listen to anymore like in the days of warning shots on the Paul Revere run.  Give me that old time religion.
        
That old time religion sings out the May day by the river up in my head.  It's an odd occasion, God given, when I can carry a tune up there, but when I can I'm a choral master.
        
April said that the devil was bound to set me loose.  She thought that she was a hot shot, especially after she went down to the river to get a good dunking by the Reverend.
        
He's the one that got April to go off about the devil looking for a good home.  April spit the Reverend's shit quick while I was left with the bile to suck down.  The thing was, I wasn't one for the river like her.  I was stuck with my own cherubim and seraphim serenading.  Like  I said, give me that old time religion, but I like it wild in the wilderness, flesh free.  April left her mark on May.  I wonder if she'd be bright eyed if she saw me nowadays on a Broadway stroll, tripping over those lights fantastic, along with all of the stars struck and fallen, on the sidewalks of New York.
        
Jackie's a best girl; Port Authority prime with plenty to offer 8th Avenue.  She's got the goods for the screen scene and is well worth the Irving Klaw loop dime find playing for the pictures all the way down on 14th Street.  She's nothing like the holy land from where my shtick was derived.  I say to hell with heaven and put a riffle to your eye if you can't see the better that she's made of the schleps down here.
        
Maybe I'm stuck on the side streets because I'm a bodhisattva in a stay and save game.  But you know what; I don't want that paradise that I've given the girl.  I did a knock up job that beat out the Reverend's dunk down, even if April didn't see it coming.  She thinking that she was the May Queen with a thirty-one day reprieve on the down in the dirt during my dark night, soul search, with St. John lost to Christ and his cross. 
        
I'm a real good time Charlie Christian with a Robert Johnson tune to play at the crossroads.  Hearing Jackie sounding off in there while the facet keeps dripping in the bathroom down the hall has finally got me thinking straight about that river run with April.  May Queen baby, that ain't the game.  That dripping...  I'm here to wash clean the white washed.  April saw May but Jackie doesn't need another day, no matter what Johnny Falls has to say.
        
These angels know nothing about the two-step, or the waltz.  The dripping has got to stop before the river runs dry.
        
Jackie was lost the day that she got off of the bus and walked out onto 42nd Street laughing at all the All-Americans with their Heisman ambitions that she left behind.  Johnny Falls, with his black wings flapping, was able to pick-up on that the moment he saw her strut.  He always had his eyes on the ball.  Listening to him down there now wailing for his want of heaven while Jackie cucks him for a clown, ain't right.  Johnny Falls never did me wrong and I'll do him right.
        
That dripping sink.  The city really has some dumps.
        
Coming up here with those angels, Jackie made a bad call thinking that she'd out pace Johnny Falls.  Johnny Falls is the sinner's best friend and I'm a sinner who saves.  Jackie's kicks are going be coming high to the head, if not right between the eyes.
        
I'm the one here to take the stage, just like that day in May; the redeemer.  I'll send Johnny on his way.  He'll know that tomorrow is another day with the buses coming in from the Lincoln Tunnel and money to be made.  Johnny Falls was once one with the angels so he's not going to go down with the angels' spot and chase shell shuffle.   When they're finished in there and Jackie comes walking out repentant, I'll make sure that she stays on the path.  I'll take her over to the piers and have her walk the plank.  The Hudson has never been a dunking river in which the sinner was meant to be saved, but tonight I'll turn it into the Jordan.
        
April thought that she was going to be a fine swimmer and the Reverend led her along in all of the seven seas of illusion, but it was me who set her free.  I know the deeps.  I took April down to the slippery stones, setting her down for the bottom sink,  and I'll do the same for Jackie.  She's been in over her head since the day that she stepped off the bus at the Port Authority all of those months ago.
        
Me and Johnny Falls will go uptown.  It will do him good.  No one that we know ever takes the train up that high and we can live a good while there on the sly.  I'll find a place with a view of the Harlem River and we'll watch for Jesus to come walking across the water to lead us to the killing floor.