Madman, Bummers, Better Days and a New York City Serenade ( for Danny Federici)

An elegy for the man with the keys to the storied rock clubs on E street
where South Side Johnny shuffles with the wild and the innocent.

The Stone Pony beckons with it's cast iron mane and hubcap sized nostrils.
There are horseshoe prints all over these badlands.

What started out as private salvation has become the church of rock!-
Open all night to those who wish to be blinded by the light-

Not to have your eyes taken but to have your sight given-
A gift like junk across the horizon- A real highway man's farewell



All the usual bandits are in funeral attendance
and wild Billy's circus stories sound like a symphony.

The mile long boardwalk is surrounded by crazy cats in coonskin caps
and the waves beat the sleepy shore flat and shiny

filling foot prints with water- erasing evidence of human involvement-
but what evidence we have!

We had a twinkle toe thimble thumb
who was born to run with an organ on his back.

A man who took one moment into his hands-
a man that howled louder than the dogs on main street-

A man who knew no retreat, no surrender
and would have no problem proving it all night!

Such a man could never mistake oil for blood,
get lost in the flood or take fame for granted-

The proof is in the man at peace with the fatigue
of life on the road for a labor of love.



As I am writing this elegy I found out that Bo Diddley
has traveled beyond this physical realm

and so my work for the dead is not done-
in fact it has clearly just begun and I guess it can never end.

Death is the green wheel of existence
verdant with vines of wisdom in it's cracked wooden glory.

Death is the most well trodden road-
the path that is always taken-

a true triumph of the soul
over a lifetime of vast materialism.

It is the last scraped knee-
the last stick caught in the spoke.

It was Independence Day for you Danny
and the spirits in the night were calling you all the way home.

They wanted you to laugh and cry in a single sound.
They wanted you to worm your way through the maze and find the womb.

From the days tomb of thoughts
music you made floods my minds gate-

Music that mends with a familiar caress
like nothing that's fondled my psyche before-

Death flags us all down with agility and candor-
and sees to it our final hours

are chock-full of ghosts, rhapsodies, relatives
and cherubs of all races with angelic baby faces.