Thursday, May 20, 2021

Help Me, Walter Hollywood

 He lights a cigarette, compromises his health

Fresh lungs don’t matter in this neo-noir hell

Every day someone is murdered and forgotten

Until the corpse makes the streets smell rotten


“Help me, Walter Hollywood,” says the dame

Every transaction starts to all sound the same

An envelope of cash, smoke the last of the ash

Hope to god her lover isn’t thrown out like trash


But before he slings the questions around town

Obligatory sex scene with hushed moaning sounds

Almost makes the lover a complete afterthought

But there are bills to be paid, killers to be caught


Every fedora-wearing wise guy takes a swing

Until Walter’s eyes water, nose bleeds, ears ring

Anymore snooping and he’ll be full of bullets

Take his scalp until he’s only left with a mullet


Walter taps the dame up for a little more money

She laughs like his misery and bruises are funny

Admission of failure is just another part of the job

She winks one more time and turns the doorknob


Another body just washed up on the riverbank

Bricks around his ankles ensured that he sank

His face was so familiar despite the taped mouth

And the two black eyes and his nose cut out


Finding the lover was as easy as reading the paper

Nothing about this mystery made Walter feel safer

The money he was paid made him look like a hit man

Police would arrest him, lock him up with a big man


Capitalism made people do the weirdest things

Wait tables, scrub floors, stand on the streets and sing

Taking unclean money seemed like the way out

Why isn’t the dame’s freedom in any kind of doubt?


It’s a system that abuses everyone who struggles

Locks up the failures with big men who snuggle

Gangsters and politicians sip from a glass of wine

And every femme fatale continues to look so fine

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