dmseay

where is home…which way…directions are needed…is it in the past…in search of old friends…old haunts…the jazz bar on Lawrence…hanging out with Trane…Miles…Dizzy….first round’s on me…

a lakeshore watching boats float and lovers walk-by…some young…some old…green grass is cool…calling out to be slept upon…an evening nap to rest a body that gave-up long ago…

where is my home…is it out west among the other restless wanderer’s…all roads in America’s disenchantment lead to San Francisco…a last hope…a last line of a nation’s greatest haiku…

back to Manhattan…back to Bellevue’s 12th floor with psych-techs eager to put you to sleep…just hold still…returning to coded bathroom doors…shit-stained seats…wiping the ass Indian style.. left or right…

is my home back in the deep South of my youth..charismatic preachers laying-down Fundamentalist law…and mothers manipulating the truth while egg-washed flour dredged chicken livers fry in a vat of bacon drippings…

looking for that home i was told of…if work was done…if money was saved…if if if…America’s theme is if…

so i  return to me….a poet…a human…a soul…whose skin is the only protection needed…against the cold…the rain…the down-n-outs…the ended love affairs…the suicides of friends who sought refuge elsewhere…i do not judge…

and in this park watching a sun go down on a lake of blue silver mirrors…while dogs wag tails….and French flags wave…

i am home. 

always waiting…and waiting to be waiting….to be loved….understood…maybe just considered…per chance chosen among the many…

entering your chambers…where comfort was sought…again and again and again…only to be told,…take a number…form a straight line…all will be served…

and the price of love was costly…anguish…heartache…pride tossed out…to be made the fool over and over while the body hurts…the soul burns…

the dance was over way too quick…did either get what they wanted….no one ever does….

love lies  in fear…hidden behind potions and spells cast upon us long ago…by other lovers…who punished and pricked your skin…

but…not i…not i…never was a trace left…not a mark…not a scratch…gossamer skin left perfect…

so in your fort you will stay…forever and ever…amongst the boys who ask of favors…the wines still to be drunk…and the notepads of names written from the past….

attempts at your heart…only in vain…a saint left behind near a bed where words were whispered throughout the night…,shhhhh you said…,shhhh…you are not allowed to love me…you are not allowed…

and i will always wonder…who is…

you had a great uncle who was an alcoholic, the old man spoke as I drove down backroads among old trucks…slow Plymouths…semi-trailers in search of freedom…

yea…he was a drunk…his wife too, pop paused…kept on looking at Dodges…Jeeps…Fords, She died of a shot liver…damn near pickled that thing…probably did…

he wound up dead one night after he’d picked her up from the hospital…she was up on the tenth floor tryin’ to dry out…they never dry out…, I just kept on driving..and driving…listening…

yea he got run over by a truck while he was changin’ a tire on the side of the road…that really put her in the nut-house…she never came out of it…I think she died there…

oh well…how far are we…I’m gettin’ hungry..

the sign in the cemetery read THE MURDERS OF ABORTION…a white cross…a broken red heart…the sign of Christ who asked that thee not judge…

amongst the tombstones of many who had lived long years…those cut-off in their prime…a woman buried with child…all placed belief in a country of laws and order…or maybe not…

perhaps a few gave-up that hope in America…couldn’t buy it…nor steal it…and all their work all their toils paid not…

the rent was always due…cupboards many times bare….soup-lines…picket lines…government lines…the constant hurry-up and wait….and wait….and wait some more…

the fears of stray bullets…sounds of babies crying….drunken fathers loud hurtful words from the apartment next door…, All these damn kids…not a one of them mine…I ain’t taken care of them…

and the welfare checks stop…the food stamps slashed…and numbers are taken at the free clinic…the constant cough that will not go away…time is needed…yes time..

the crucifix read, THE MURDERS OF ABORTION….a country where grace was killed long ago… 

i know these guys…thin as the needles they stick in their arms…between toes…why hide the obvious…

skin weathered…beat by sun and wind and cold and rain… and America…

there is no downtown loft…nor suburban ranch to rest disheveled thoughts…no tonic to relieve this pain…that past…the ever-present here and now…screaming out nothing…absolutely nothing…words stopped long ago…

daily pacing by water fountains…sleeping in bathroom stalls…refuge in the air-conditioned nightmare…discarding all the ambitions and hopes they once had…only to realize that Horatio Alger was full of shit all along…Ayn Rand was a fake…and Dale Carnegie was worth nothing more than a hundred dollar bottle of wine…Do we have a deal…

and the waiting and the still more waiting for nothing more than the big sleep…to dream for eternity…leaving all and sundry far behind…farther still…gone…gone…gone…

hours pass like boots dragging in mud…looking for the next fix…and the one after that and the one after that…

oh Buddha…had they only known…

there were Christmas lights hangin’ over cobblestone streets…lined from pole to pole…greens..reds…orange…all aglow…glistening in the Southern night as I walked from one end to another beginning…only to end again and again and again….

down dark alleyways where junkies itched and scratched like mad men afflicted with disease and bedbugs and poisons…behind dumpsters where lollypop girls applied their trade…in parked cars…only to find bodies wrapped in swaddling clothes…

looked in all-night coffee-shops and asked menthol maids if they’d seen the likes of you…in bars and taverns…only to be told nothin’ doin’…haven’t seen her in ages…gotta buck I can borrow…

Walmart parking lots and 24 hour grocery stores in the canned goods aile…near the dairy…amongst the wines…candies always neatly packaged…

knocked on doors…dens of inequity…churches with hours posted…specified times for salvation…bus terminals showing arrivals and departures…coming or going…I never know…

you are gone…just gone…everything is temporary…

leaving behind nights of fucking and drinking and drinking and fucking turned love’making turned endless yelling with screams and keys thrown…accusations tossed about…where were you at midnight…

driving I 95 from a nation’s capital…no deals to be struck on my end…not a lobbyist nor a check to be found…bartender…make it another round…

and pushing into the night with thoughts of what was left behind…where does this interstate lead to…how did I get here…William Penn pissing on a city below that gave-up years ago…you go your way and I’ll go mine…

but the sun never rises…the dark follows…into Gotham…beyond bean-town…by shores where old fishing boats stay docked…never to roam waters again…

while sitting in a red Rodeo with a cup of Joe…wondering if you wonder about me..and the drinking and the fucking and the fighting til dawn….

peace be with you…peace be with you…maybe next time we’ll get it right…maybe…

a blurry vision of a country indeed…always I’ve wanted to leave..go away and never return to a land built by Puritans..blue-bloods…sell this and buy that…get outta my way Mac…I’m coming through…make way…

Miller left America after mother-fucking the land of liberty from sun-up to slumber…only to go to Paris where he gave the French a piece of his mind as well…is there no solace…why bother…

the constant craving to run-away…to just leave all behind…all troubles…all burdens left in a heap for some poor bastard to clean-up the next day…with mop and bleach…always leaving a mess…

Los Angeles…New York…Chicago…Montreal…New Haven…Asheville…St. Louis…Iowa City…run…run…run…

Greyhounds at four in the morning…parked cars on side streets…a sidewalk bench in Greenwich Village..the cold chill of winter and the freshness of spring welcomed under a tree in Central Park…take it all in…take it all in…

gone from one’s control…without dollar to spare…a hot cup of coffee and a hard roll with butter…get in line…this is the cost of freedom…

still running…always running…never finding home…never finding home…

the familiar fear of a dr’s. office…the terror…to be told…this is failing…that is falling apart…more meds are required…we’d like to draw blood…can I get a stool sample…

the pokes and the prodding…humiliation of scales telling the undeniable truth….stop drinking coffee…stop eating fried foods…start exercising…water is our friend…

and the lecture ends…the choice is made…

bartender…make it a double…

there was a bench under a pagoda where mornings were spent…reading Whitman…devouring Ginsberg…the best minds of a generation destroyed by madness…

there was a peace… calm…far away from unkind acts…unnecessary verbage…only poetry…just words on a page as nature settled in for the day as nature does…

no judgements…no hard feelings…seeing Walt’s East River and Hudson roll before my closed eyes as feet lightly touched a soft ground below…oh Manhatta…oh Manhatta…

a Midwesterners dream…a teen’s angst…wanting to leave the bench under a pagoda….

and now wanting to return…