dmseay

i watch people from a window…men on fire-escapes smoking cigarettes…plaid clad children walking home from school…women strolling down alleys…looking in dumpsters…vagabonds pushing grocery carts…a crossing guard…

saw trees change over night…from greens to golds…some stand naked…others dressed in red…soon daughters and sons will be raking fall’s fortune into piles to be played in…autumn frolic…chapped lips…

tis November…the wind wails…breath is seen…eyes water…a sky grows dark…we lose time…always losing time…where does it go…where does it go…

farther away…
maybe gone for good…
looking outside…
a train whistle wails…
where are you..

are you alone…
in the garden we once walked…
geraniums…a white flower…
a diner…eating cherry pie…
where are you…

oh whiskey girl…
i look for you…
small taverns where toasts were made…
sheets…Navajo blankets…under beds…
where are you…

wanting…
waiting…
sirens sound
winds blow…
where are you…

this dark room…
haunted by your absence…
tis midnight…
you are gone…
and you are gone…

pray for night…
slumber…
to dream…to dream…

quiet…
purple…
the moon does not haunt me…

wee hours of morn…
a street light glows…
church bells do not sound…

and i lay alone…
in this bed…this bed…
darkness is my love…

day’s troubles and woes are gone…
sleep takes me in…
for i am far…far away…

till day comes…

did you visit him this week…

the old man…

yes…

no…I did not…

you did not…

no…

how long’s it been…

a while…

a while…

yes…a while…

don’t you feel you owe him a visit…

don’t…

don’t what…

you know…

guilt you…

yes…guilt me…worse than the Catholic church you are…

that’s on you…

there you go again…again with these remarks…

I’m just saying…

what…what are you just saying…

that perhaps you owe him a visit…

he’ll be there tomorrow…and the next day…and the day after that…

so you’ll go tomorrow…

I said and the next day and the day after that…

three times in a week you’ll go…

aren’t you smart…

you just said…

aren’t you the smart one…

no need…

when I had to baby sit him for months on end where were you…eh…huh…where were you…it’s not enough that I had to clean up the mess…the shit and the stink each day…and for what…what…a few measly dollars…cash in my wallet for walking around…maybe a cold ale at the pub…and where were you…go on…tell me…tell me…

we all have schedules and appointments dear boy…schedules and appointments…

and so did I…

see here…you were given a task…a task mind you…and now you think that task is over…

tis…

not yet…he’s still living…you owe him dear boy…you owe him…

what…he was given proper care…I gave all I could mind you…and you and the rest of the family carried on your affairs…didn’t see you in the grit and the grime…

now see here…

didn’t see you washing his backside…where were you…where were you…and now you play this guilt card on me like a bishop…like a priest in a booth on a Saturday morn…(pause) we used to go for drives…everyday I took him for a spin in the country…listening to his senseless babble of grandiosity…you’d thought he served in an ambassador position you would…his talk of this and that as if he were a man of real importance…affairs that mattered…that mattered…(pause) and all these orders he gave me…I want a bun…I want a tea…I want a fruit juice…constant orders…while you and the others tended to yourselves…hands never getting a bit of filth on them…always clean…so clean…and now I am done…do you hear me…I am done…you see to his life’s end…you see to it…I am done…

…very well then…you’ve stated your case…don’t cry to me when he’s gone…don’t cry to me…you will regret this…you shall…this selfish behavior…you will be forever in sorrow over this decision…and for what…because of spite…sheer spite…I’m the reason you won’t go to visit him…I’m that reason…(pause) there was nothing going on in your life…no job…no wife and kids…you had nothing to do whatsoever…and an opportunity was given you…given…for you to make amends to a man who you left so long ago…running away from family…from Daddy…you didn’t come back to care for him…you came because you had nowhere else to go…you think I’m a fool…your bridges have been burned…you had nowhere else to go so you ran for shelter in his house…I know you…I know you…you are not one to suffer…now you say what…what…

…I say nothing…nothing…my days of this are done…I am done…go on with yourself..
go on…

leaving again I see…

yes…leaving again…

don’t come back…

he watched cars pass by…driving down streets…some going north and south while others went east and west…red tail lights glowed in the dark…people driving home from bars…second shift jobs…a high schooler’s date now late for curfew…

looked in windows ‘cross an alley…lit in a yellow hue…a man sitting at a kitchen table with his head in his hands…a young boy reclined on a bed looking into a cellphone…downstairs a dog barks at midnight…

and bums go through trashcans looking for scrap…tin cans…aluminum bottles…something to sell…always looking for something to sell…bruised arms and pricked fingers where blood was drawn and dollars were paid…dollars paid…

drunks stroll down alleys…whistling songs…singing out loud in mumbled voices of loves gone or maybe never existed…talking to themselves of life’s regrets and missed opportunities…always wishing for more…always wishing for more…

while girls stand on street corners looking to score as old rusted vans and beat-up Fords slowly creep past with windows rolled down…eyes peeled for cops in cruisers and pimps on the prowl…a price is always paid…always paid…

sound of a train blows in the distance…he wishes he was on it…going somewhere…somewhere…

instead of nowhere…

And I sat in my overstuffed chair eating stale crackers and reading Henry Miller’s Tropic Of Capricorn. As rain fell I felt cozy and warm in my rented room; not much to call mine, a bed, coffee pot, some books, a writing tablet; I felt at home. I felt at home.
I read out loud. Read parts of the book that calls out for self exploration. For that is the only exploration worth fighting for. You will not find yourself in the streets of Chicago, nor on mountains in Pakistan, it is within that you find truth; a truth that takes a lifetime to unravel. And, some will be willing to take that risk of self exploration while others will not; for they are the ones that look towards commerce and wealth, commerce and wealth, instead of the soul.
I look to my soul and I am scared. I see greed and sickness, a sickness that only comes in the form of being an American; a type of sickness that can perhaps never be cured. Perhaps.
This sickness took over my soul at birth, a demonic birth where I wailed out from within the womb, DO NOT TAKE ME, DO NOT TAKE ME, like Miller my decision of taking comfort over pain started from the get-go, and that wanting of comfort has never relinquished.
So, I seek out comfort; comfort in books, jazz, a woman’s touch, a fine meal when I’m in the flush. I do not seek out comforts in palaces, cars, cannibalism, or any of the other mediocrities seen on television in beer advertisements, cable shows, nor the nightly news.
Mine is simple. Mine is simple. And I still feel guilty.

heard what happened to ya’… knew it was bound to…just had so much of everything in ya’…maybe you were driven by demons…some crazy force that pushed ya’ all the time to take another drink…snort another line…do another guy…saw it comin’…saw it comin’…

was workin’ out my own insanity when I read ’bout it in the newspaper…did he think he was gonna go Scott-free…think he’d never get caught…

‘member we’d dance every night…get drunk and dance…we were nuts ’bout each other…should’ve stayed with ya’…so passionate…so giving…yea…you had a mean streak in ya’ too…that’s what I couldn’t handle…your threats…threats…did ya’ threaten him too…

so he shot ya’ in the neck and burned down the house…son of a bitch…part of me blames myself for not savin’ ya’ from that…if we’d stayed together…if we’d stayed together…never count on the future…never…

hope you’re safe now…safe from men…breakin’ your heart…usin’ ya’…maybe ya’ used them too…maybe ya’ used me…never to sure ’bout these things…affairs are a crapshoot…eventually luck runs out…both sides know it…both sides…

I’m sorry honey…sorry…would’ve loved to have had just one more night with ya’…just one more time of dancin’ to a Miles Davis album…boy could we dance…boy could we dance…

used to dance all night long…

was so quiet when she left…must’ve been ’round 4….pitch black outside…not a sound…no whisper saying goodbye…just silence…

and I wondered why she was gone…didn’t have a job to go to…no kids to take care of…not a husband to fix breakfast for…I wondered…

said she’d been single for a while…man left her for some younger model…said she couldn’t compete with that…a fresh face…firm body…seemed almost ashamed of what she had become in her later years…told her she looked fine…just fine…

I told her that she was one of the most beautiful women I’d ever met…great smile…nice curves…blonde hair that went on for days…said she dyed it…

left ‘fore I could make breakfast for her…left ‘fore making morning love…like some spirit in the night she’d disappeared…gone without a trace…just a scent of her left behind…

and I guess that’s all that was needed…

he’d drink his black coffee…watch the morning news…sound turned down…just a picture of a pretty face mouthing words…mouthing words…

had the TV on all day…flipping through channels in silence…he’d mumble to himself ’bout how there was never anything on…cooking shows…talk shows…cop shows…shows ’bout government agencies and plots ‘gainst the country…some kinda sabotage…

his phone never rang…no-one ever called…could say the pictures kept him company…could say these people…characters had become his friends…everyone else had left him long ago…

so he sat in his rented room all day watching TV in silence…just pictures flying through the air…

never bothered lookin’ out the windows…

you grow tired…sleepy from nothing done…a whole day of accomplishing nothing…might watch the news…some religious network…a minister with brown sideburns talkin’ ‘ bout the second coming of Jesus…telling thousands…maybe millions that the Lord is coming back in anger…a wrath…that’s what he said…you just listen…

and you look out at trees…parked cars that have been there for days…never moving…abandoned…left for someone to steal…or just left behind as the owners traveled South for winter to work in orange fields…or picking grapefruit…leaving their northern blues behind…far behind…

takes so much outta ya’…just grow tired from doing nothing…nothing but thinking up strange coincidences…making up stories based on seen objects…or people walking on sidewalks in the rain…going nowhere…going nowhere…

you turn ’round again and they’re gone…they are gone…