Old Gangsters Never Die by Alan Moore September 24, 2022Zoltar i would probably say that my first real experience of writing with a rhythm that satisfied me was a piece that i wrote when i was perhaps 23 years old this would have been around 1975 when i actually invented gangster rap i was anxious to write a piece for reading aloud at public performances that really utilized what i had come to understand about rhythm and so i wrote this piece where the only important thing in it is the rhythm yes it’s an interesting poem with some interesting images and things like that an interesting atmosphere but the thing that takes the reader from the beginning to the end of this piece is its rhythm and that’s why i wrote old gangsters never die old gangsters never die except the few that pass away in cinemas at midnight lie there sprawling in the footlights for the uh charrette or ice cream girl to find and if i die god knows i might don’t let me die in black and white don’t make me share a haunted screen with every other ghost boy who stood trembling in the foyer sipping wine and shot his cuffs and coughed and checked the time and stepped outside and got cut down by dead policemen faces strobing in the panic light their long dark cars parked out the back their halos black against the night and john dillinger’s name in finest bullet silver etched upon their hearts a cold tattoo upon their skin right next to where the badge is pinned i could die carefully at dusk because buddy i once owned a pair of diamond collar studs and as i live and breathe i swear that that’s no lie and men with such good taste as me deserve to cash their chips more elegant than those without a shirt upon their back or shine upon their dancing shoes like playing poker being dealt the ice of flames you stand and whispering once your mother’s name pitch headlong dead across the roulette table bullet holes pin block are missed this puppies in neat rows across your back or drowning you know so many hoods and hit men got sent down to tread the riverbed for all eternity and now they look like statues in some cold submerged art gallery and i would gladly kiss the hands of any man who’d bind my wrists and send me down to be in such good company dutch schultz capone what men like that had health stars in their eyes and when they walked in groups of more than three they must have looked like grounded constellations torn down from a bee filmed sky old gangsters they never die say wouldn’t it be nice to fall asleep forever in some old speak easy in the 1920s where they never pulled aside the blind and looked outside to find that that 50 years had washed away all of the legends and the zoot suits and the blood stains like a fistful of dead roses someone left there with the hatchet girl and drove off into old chicago with their windows wound and their radios turned down to keep their holstered shoulders cold and dry oh gangsters they never die say john i got the tickets for the show here in my very hand enjoy the show and when you kiss that girl good night there in her red dress screaming do it carefully good burgundy upon the tongue for she will kill you john and one must always kiss one’s killer night that slow hey ma i shot your boys out there and as i live and breathe i swear i never seen a pair who felt so sweet to hear the final poetry of cordite in the air or turned their faces up like so receiving death as if it were a mother’s kiss or something black and rare hey fellas hey is it cold there in that movie house tonight come on let’s pass out that jack daniels and we’ll talk about old murders double crosses and dead blondes and we’ll say here’s looking at you his blood in your eye old dreams wear dusty clothing old ghosts sit in the back room old bodies don’t tell stories but old gangsters never die you Share this:TweetWhatsAppTelegramEmail