hear that wind out there…must be goin’ 50 miles per hour..sounds cold…train wailin’…lights shinin’…castin’ a glow on parked cars up and down the street…that wind just cries…cries…
red tail lights come-on as a pick-up truck stops atta stop sign…that’s funny…no-one ever stops at that stop sign…not at this time of night…pass on through…pass on through…
voices of men muffled…walkin’ down back alleys…a snowflake falls…mornin’ will be here soon…
mornin’ will be here soon…
watched one car pass after another…Dodge…Chevy…SUV’s…all goin’ somewhere…on highways…travelin’ at a pretty fair clip of speed…passin’ me up…thumb out…head down…night would fall soon…
and i kept walkin’ backwards…adjusting thick straps over my shoulders…a weight on my back…bag filled with all my possessions…toothpaste…toothbrush…tighty whitees…Tropic Of Capricorn…Leaves Of Grass…walkin’ backwards…walkin’ backwards…
hummed…This Land Is Your Land… as cars kept drivin’ by…thought ’bout that Indian on tv when i was a kid…he had a tear in his eye…thought ’bout Smokey the Bear too…Saturday mornings were easy back then…
sittin’ atop air vents…warmin’ our bottoms while mom made hot chocolate and marshmallows…This Land Is Your Land…
watched one car pass after another…Dodge…Chevy…SUV’s…all goin somewhere…all goin’ somewhere…
he told me you’d be here…waitin’ as always…don’t you have any gumption to do anything on your own…been this way all your life…just sittin’ ’round like you got all the time in the world…you think that don’t ya’…think that this world revolves ’round ya’…think you’re owed somethin’…like ya’ earned it just by bein’ born…an entitlement I guess you’d call it…livin’ day by day till somethin’ hits…like you’re fishin’ but they ain’t bitin’ and you’re just gettin’ madder and madder…but you don’t even have the right bait…you’re never gonna catch anything…this country don’t owe you a fish…you gotta catch it…gotta work those waters…you ain’t never worked the waters boy…hardly cast your line…now here you sit…waitin’ as always for some miracle to happen…the second comin’ of Jesus I don’t know…ya’ gotta save yourself…at least I did…no-one saved me…did it on my own boy…that Dodge I got was paid with cash…money I earned with my hands…that house ya’ sleep in…wasn’t no gift boy…had to work for all of it…didn’t have time to sit ’round and wait…don’t know what that luxury’s like…some kinda day dream I guess…hey…are you even listenin’…do you get this…it’s gonna sneak up on ya’ one of these days…like some kinda snake in the grass…you won’t even hear it hissin’…just sneak up ‘side ya’ and bite ya’…that’s what this world offers ya’…that’s it…a big ole snake bite that ya’ spend the rest of your days mendin’…ain’t been bitten yet boy…ain’t been bitten yet…you will…just you wait and see…it’ll come up on ya’…sure as the Sun…sure as the Sun…
you know what he wanted…
what…
silence…just silence…kind you get when there’s no-one ’round…like at 3 o’clock in the mornin’ when you look outside at the snow covered streets and you hear nothin’…maybe a car goin’ by…plow…but nothin’ major…no sounds…
oh yea…
used to hear her from down the hall tossin’ and turnin’ in her sleep…mumblin’ ’bout sometin’ or other…loud…whiskey dreams…
really…
yea…he’d be sittin’ there on the couch and he’d hear her from down the hall makin’ these noises…he’d listen…strokin’ a cat who was just a purrin’ the whole time…wanted to lay next to her…but that’d wake her up…didn’t wanna wake her up…
she slept lightly…
sorta’… she’d be talkin’ out loud as if she was just on the verge of wakin’ up…like she was gonna’ confess somethin’…
confess somethin’…
yea…that’s what he was listenin’ for…a confession…some kinda’ misdeed…a sin ‘gainst him…somethin’ he could put in his file cabinet and use at a later time…
she ever confess…
no…never did…never said anything ’bout wrong doin’s in her life…nothin’ towards him…just words babbled…never said she loved him either…kept that to herself…like some top secret…
never did…
never did…he wanted hear those words…longed for ’em…he’d sit there just waitin’ for her to say it…I-LOVE-YOU….never came…’at’s what drove him to wantin’ silence…he’d rather hear nothin’ at all…
and he’d spend his time sending out messages…words through a phone to whoever would listen…old friends…ex-wives…people he didn’t even know…friended ’em…had 862 friends…folks he’d never shared a drink with…hugged…shook their hands…just faces with names attached…pictures of ’em in their best poses…talkin’ ’bout a new grandson…their evil twin…takin’ pokes at the president…
862 people ‘cross a country…scattered from East to West…a man in Idaho who stays up all night…insomnia…loves to hear from strangers ’bout their lives…what they been up to…just someone to whittle away time with till mornin’ comes…till mornin’ comes…
sat there all day and night in a rented room…hopin’ that someone would reach out to him…some kinda’ woman who was lookin’ for love…someone he could have an affair with like in the old days when he was young…the days of goin’ to bars and seekin’ out company on a Friday night…just someone to talk with ’bout the state of the crazy world…’bout their dreams…wantin’ to share his inner most desires…inner most desires…
he’d send out these messages like a fisherman casting for trout in a muddy river…not ever knowin’ what he was gonna’ catch…but…he knew he’d catch somethin’…lots of lonely people out there…lots of lonely people…
church glowed in morning light…steeple high…tarnished cross atop…windows iced in a purple hue…doors closed…no one entered…no one entered…
and children ran past it…breaking away from their mother’s hands…chasing the cold breeze blowing…tongues out…trying to catch a snowflake or two…a snowflake or two…
old men sit in a tavern ‘cross the street…telling woes of third shifts and tuna casseroles prepared lovingly by wives at home…schooners raised in blinking neon…Budweiser…Budweiser…Budweiser…
leafless trees let us know that fall is gone…red chaped hands of boys playing basketball on splotchy iced courts won’t seek healing till March…till March…
schizophrenics in rented rooms remember the one’s that got away as Ramen noodles are slurped…eaten with plastic forks…crocheted sweaters from armies of salvation lay in a corner waiting for a folding that will never come…never…
young girls carrying babies into a clinic…crossing Calhoun…as buses go by and salt trucks spread their holiday cheer…holiday cheer…
i stand on the corner in a coat bought with cash…watching all and sundry…waiting for the church doors to open…for morning prayers…morning prayers…
tis winter…and the neighborhood never looked so good…never did it look so good…
and it was really cold out there…hitch hikin’ through Kansas…no gas stations for miles…no diners to get a cup of coffee in…very few cars passin’ by…sometimes you’d see headlights…sometimes…
picked-up a ride from a trucker headin’ east…into Missouri…said he was goin’ to St. Louis…seemed as good a town as any in america…when you’re broke…you’re broke…the dollar only stretches so far…
dollar didn’t stretch far in Los Angeles… or Phoenix…Alberqurquee…Denver didn’t deliver…spent all that time runnin’ ’round…lookin’ for what…some kinda’ soul down deep inside…somethin’ only the road can bring outta’ you…only the road…
that trucker and I spent the whole night listenin’ to Art Bell…hearin’ tales of impending doom…clues pertaining to the end of the world…we’d both nod our heads in silence…not a word ‘tween us…just Art Bell’s voice comin’ through a tinny speaker…
night was clear as a bell…no stars…no clouds…easy for radio signals to transmit…easy to get lost in yourself…thinkin’ ’bout this women in Texarkana you once loved…pretty woman…real pretty…but stuck in her ways…guess they all are…
Sun came up just as we hit town…dropped me off in East St. Louis on the Illinois side…told me that in a couple of hours the strip joints would open up…tossed me a $50 and told me not to spend it all in one place…you meet guys like that…you meet guys like that…
she took over everything…thoughts…dreams…
they do that…
blindsided me…had no idea…
inexperienced…first time’s always the toughest…find yourself thinkin’ ’bout ‘ em twenty-four hours a day…just wastin’ time thinkin’ ’bout somethin’ you have no control over…you may think you’re in control…but you’re not…
they are…
always have been…from the get-go…the beginning of time…they play a role…a part like in some Hollywood movie…could be a femme fatale…or…some kinda’ dream you cooked-up in your head…but they’ll play that character till it’s the death of you…till you can’t breathe anymore…find yourself suffocating in what you thought was love…
they fool ya’…
yes…they fool you everytime…laugh at you behind your back…like you’re some kinda’ circus chimpanzee…ridin’ ’round on some little motorcycle till you get dizzy and fall off…
so what do ya do…
you just succumb to it…smarter than us…prettier…and they don’t play fair…never did…not in their nature…they got us by the tail boy…don’t you understand that…
guess so…
we’re just peasants in their kingdom…you think you got somethin’ special they want…think again…they’re out for blood kid…blood…and there ain’t no stoppin’ ’em…they got the mind of a benevolent dictator and the body of a goddess layin’ out ‘fore ya’…they’re just waitin’ on you to take a bite…they got all the time in the world…and there ain’t a damn thing you can do but fall for it every time…we’re the fools boy…we’re the fools…just ask Adam…
it wasn’t as planned…things were ‘spose to work out differently…
ain’t that always the case…you think you got somethin’ then the whole damn thing just blows up in your face…explodes without a warnin’…
yeah…does…it’s a mystery ain’t it…
no…secretely you see it comin’…but it’s all subliminal…you know it’s there but you just don’t do a damn thing ’bout it…
you can’t…like you said…it’s subliminal…it’s not on the up-n-up…just lingers ’round your head…invisible…you know it’s there though…just choose to let it go subconsciously…till one day…
one day…boom…it blows up in your face…this subliminal message of the subconscious has had ‘nough and it just blows…spewin’ words all over…hurtful words…words you didn’t even know you had in you…no stoppin’ it…can’t…
listen…only you can put out forest fires…gotta be some kind of responsibility here…
how can you stop it…you can’t see it..or hear it…like a ghost…
but it’s you man…it’s all you…you’re either in control of yourself or you’re not…
I don’t guess I am…
guess you’re not…
he’d stay up for hours…talkin’ to himself…’bout little things…smallness of life…just how inconsequential we truly are…
compared us to a bunch of bugs…termites chewing away at the earth…non-stop destruction…not content till everything and sundry was destroyed…people have a way…people have a way…
and he’d go-on and on till early morn…never slept…an all night bitch fest…spewin’ words of hell…damnation…thought we were all doomed…doomed for actions that were predestined…no gettin’ out of it…
said the Sun would stop burnin’ eventually…the moon would turn purple…and we’d all be stuck in constant night…an all out darkness 24/7…
did it to ourselves…, he’d mumble…did it to ourselves…
dmseay 