From Durham

Bull city cool

Means a nightclub

With bocce in the back. 

Durm has the illicit

Breath of an unshowered

Husband

DURM equals

The strength of a smokers

Hack divided by its

Patio beer garten appeal

Durham has a blue soul

That shines in dusk

And cares for your quality time

Duke makes a great 

Tie clip and ballpoint pen. 

Seventy year old alums

 and undergrads 

With apeish grins

Patrolling the storied

Oaks and columns and

Courthouses and brothels

Frat essence is the

Weighty gazes of ironic

Nicety impinging on

Barbarous crimson lust

Nervy carboro goons

That flex insouciant

And careen their dirges

Through your bull town

Long enough that they have

Erected a model home

Secret cruel and false

Ghosts

Still linger inside the 

Hollowed out tobacco factories

And slave fields and 

Mind the ancient country homes

 stained from deposed economies

Basketball is not a religion

But if it were this is Antioch

Addis Adaba 

Bedlam

and Zion all rolled into one. 

Durham denies

Involvement but I cannot figure

The source of sour pickled

Deep fried chicken on

A sourdough waffle

Otherwise. 

We make rattling sounds

As air is sucked out of lungs

By the massive implosive of 

Blue devil athletes

Imbibing their own

Flatus. 

Delicate greens souced 

In bloodless remediation

And served aside a light

Patê of indigents' bone

Digital corpulence 

Geer st stud shakes his

Halo on the corner like

A dervish under the

Lightless new moon

Corporate street 

Feels downright slumy

Next to the sleek marble

Inside every durm-era

Lovers' heart. 

Local cotton 

Isn't something you'll ever

Find (or desire)

In Michigan, but the Carolinian

Considers cotton A Matter Suitable 

and as soon as they forget 

It's no longer picked by hand

It will be artisanal too