dmseay

i look ’round and there is nothing…a case for glasses…wooden lamp…books…this bed to rest upon at night…not for dreams…not for dreams…

and there are copper cups we drank from on chilly November Eve… a bond fire glowed…smells of whiskey…mint…nights of lifted spirits…here’s to lifted spirits…

we would drink till late into early morn…telling stories from our youth…first drink…first love…first heartbreak…we drank and drank…i miss those nights…

this drink is to us…i raise this glass to us…to our once upon a time love affair which was toasted everynight…i drink this to you old friend…i drink this to you…cheers mate…cheers…

i look ’round and there is nothing…a case for glasses…wooden lamp…books…this bed to rest upon at night…not for dreams…not for dreams…

travels…
town to town…
wandering roads…
wind-burned…
aimlessly walking…

slowed pace…
hope in a god…
soul grows wary…
bones ache…
where is the magic in poverty…

sleep under bridges…
naps in fields with weeds grown tall…
comfort gone…
no couch stretches on Saturday afternoons…
a hoody keeps me warm…

roads crossed…
Missouri…Oklahoma…Texas…New Mexico…
counting license plates…
keeping track of Viceroys…
smoke ’em if ya’ got ’em…

blinding white swept over a highway…
plows pass-by…
trucks from out East do not slow-down…
deadlines to meet…
my body knows no schedule…

the road again…
known too well…
what song will play through my head today…
which story will i remember…
a tale of us…

heard she was in New York…
doing time in corporate america…
business transactions…
contracts signed…
checks cleared…

her dreams came to life…
these american dreams…
the allure of money…
life’s riches…
titles taken…

was not for me…
a life of flights and morning trains…
t’was soul i longed-for…
hunger for redemption…
Lord give us our daily bread…

walk…
stroll to another town…
exiled from the big-time
alone with god…
was all i ever wanted…

our choices made…
decisions thought-out…
writing another line…
this poem…
pieces of us…

A Portrait of the Artist As a Young Man and Ulysses stand side by side…sandwiched in by Norman Mailer novels…on a desk amongst keys…liquid soap…a coffee-pot…

Tropic of Capricorn and Ted Hughes lean upon a red leather-bound Bible towards the end of the bookcase…a silver mug used for Kentucky Mules prevents them all from falling…Unamuno lay on his back taking in Sun-light…quarter filled boxes of fried-rice and lo mein dance ’round the Spaniard…

Cervantes and Simic sit on an Ottoman…waiting and waiting to be read again…and again…once is never enough…while Baudrillard’s, America…bent and warped…cling to Shepard in a night-stand drawer to be read…just before dreaming…just before dreaming…

these friends i keep…
these friends i keep…

tried talkin’ to him…no use…he’d just sit there an’ stare off into space…didn’t know what he was thinkin’…sure wasn’t what I was sayin’…wanted nothin’ to do with me…sit alone…be by himself…that’s all he wanted…

an’ I’d call from time to time to see how he was doin’…answered the phone in this real low voice…Texas drawl…didn’t even say hello…just …,yeah…,ask him how he was…nothin’ was said…like talkin’ to myself…found myself responding to my own voice…repeating what was said to him on the other line…far far away…he was gone…

one day he called me…got this notion ’bout headin’ down to Texas to see where his mom and dad were buried…said he was gonna’ hitch-hike down there…start out walkin’ then put his thumb out…said somebody’d pick him up…

told him that wasn’t a good idea…August heat would knock him for a loop…said he needed to reconsider…he just laughed…said I didn’t know a thing ’bout the road…told stories of bein’ young an’ hitchin’ to Denver from Dallas…an’ from Northern New Mexico to places in Southern California… ‘fore he met mom…then again…he talked of trips to the Moon as well…

keep goin’ by his house…tryin’ to call him…no answer…maybe he went ahead an’ took-off after-all…he just might’ve…

been a month now…

no word…

we’d spend hours lookin’ at old photographs…colored pictures of when we were in love…vacations to Canada…New York…shots of Paris in an album marked, Memories…

always started with a bottle of red…poured till the last drop was gone…we’d just pull the cork outta’ another one an’ continue-on…lookin’ at shots in high school annuals…hair parted down the middle…freckles…tough guy poses an’ pretty girl smiles…

spent our time in the past…her with a family on a farm pickin’ corn during harvest time…football games for the boy who’d go-on to sell insurance…me…talkin’ ’bout a life with a wife an’ a loneliness that was always there…

wine would turn to whiskey…more talk of times in the past…never wanting to face the present…a future…took comfort in misery…multiple affairs…lies upon lies…always havin’ to cover tracks…fresh foot-prints of lover’s paths ’round midnight…

an’ we’d talk till we passed-out…music blarin’…windows opened out into suburbia with blue street-lights givin’ off a haunting hue… the fan blowin’ pictures of old times…portraits flappin’ in the wind…

we’d spend hours lookin’ at old photographs…colored pictures of when we were in love…vacations to Canada…New York…shots of Paris in an album marked, Memories…

people eating alone…drinking alone…thinking alone…no-one looks at the other…they eat grilled cheese sandwiches…salads…a constant eye on a cellphone…a computer screen…fingers pointed…pushing a screen…a new age has dawned…

other than bad 80’s music playing…there is no noise…just quiet…no-one talking…people penalized for conversing…sharing ideas…pleasantries…as if the human voice has been silenced…

maybe it has been…

used to drink and make love everynight…it’d start when we got home from work…open a bottle of whatever sounded good…a Cabernet…Merlot…some times we just headed for the hard stuff…vodka on rocks or straight-up whiskey…we didn’t care…it always took us to the same place…

we’d talk ’bout loves from the past…your exes…my exes…wives…husbands…lovers from a long time ago…people that’d broken our hearts…just talk…talk till the late shows came-on…we’d turn the volume down and colors would fly through the front living-room as we held each other…kissed one another…the bottle was always near-by…

then we’d go back to talkin’…drinkin’ an’ talkin’ in the dark…no-longer a blueish hue…no more sound…just our voices an’ some laughter…you’d start to tickelin’ me..tried to break away…always got me…layin’ on my side all curled-up just both of us laughin’ till we started kissin’ again…we always wound-up kissin’ again…

used to drink an’ make love everynight…i’d think ’bout you all day long at the factory…passin’ along products on an assembly-line while you were away at some store sellin’ paints and brushes…got real jealous when you’d come home talkin’ ’bout how some painter was hittin’ on ya’ in aisle 13…askin’ ya’ if you had a boyfriend…were ya’ single…

made me angry…all that talk ’bout other men…i think ya’ knew that…but ya’ kept talkin’…an’ puttin’ your mouth on mine in a soul kiss that would last till the next drink was poured…always wondered if that’s what happened with your husbands…your lovers…if ya’ set out to make them jealous too…

an’ i was no better i guess…tellin’ stories ’bout times in Canada with the wives…New York stories of how we’d stroll through Central Park…don’t know why i did it…maybe i was tryin’ to top ya’…get back at ya’ for makin’ me mad with envy…i wanted to be that painter in aisle 13…

we just drank an’ made love everynight till we was both done with each other…two lonely people tryin’ to escape the blues with kisses and wine…kisses and wine…

never did it taste so good…

don’t know if there was ever a time…when things were right…’spose I always cared…to some degree…’bout people…what they thought of me and if I was well-liked you could say…guess it was a concern of mine…

go-on…

wanted to be liked…who doesn’t really…a matter of importance…perhaps…in school wanting to be liked…not getting that…silly really…after-all it’s only school…not the real world and how things operate now is it…

you tell me…

kids running ’round in cliques…little groups of friends already formed…and from what…like-minded…same socio-economic-political landscape…I think not…kids don’t think that way now do they…

how do they think then…

they’re looking for deformities now aren’t they…looking for what’s wrong with you…how you don’t quite fit-in…any little weakness on your part to expose…

such-as…

well I don’t know really…a pimply face…bad teeth…usually the physical I ‘spose…pretty-one’s go to the front of the line…they get what they want ’cause of luck…sheer luck of not being born in a bad position…

like…

maybe not coming from the right family…perhaps money is an issue…they got their’s…and here you wait in the mix with the other blokes wanting a piece…just a bit…but is that opportunity there really…really…

you tell me…

no…it is not…they will not let you in their little group ’cause you are different from them…poor with a face like a pizza-pie…maybe a stutter…or your thoughts on things are different…god forbid if one would have an original thought…

so you wanted acceptance…

I still do…yes…I get it…

get what…

tis the real world…that real world does begin in school…

perhaps…

perhaps nothing…you spend this whole miserable life trying to be accepted…

if you choose that route…

what other route is there…you have to become one of them…a lemming…walk the straight and narrow…do as they say…and the one’s that get to be in charge were established long ago on some playground playing tag..smear the queer…you know the routine…some kind of demeaning process they put you through…

I see…

the line is pretty thick mate…and the minute you cross it there is a warning…sirens go-off…telling you to get back where you came from…

but what about diversity being celebrated…

that’s a fucking joke…there’s no diversity in diversity…my good man…the poor will always be among us…and they intend to keep it that way…sure…a couple of strayers might squeak through the muck and the mire…but don’t count on it…don’t you count on it…

and this is the heart of it…

I ‘spose so…

the heart of your anger…

I didn’t make the rules…no-one asked me…my opinion was not sought…

everyone is entitled to an opinion…

really mate…

yes…

what world do you live-in…

an’ you’re always worried ’bout money…makin’ a dollar stretch a few days…few hours…never ‘nough…never ‘nough…

stayin’ up till midnight to see that check drop-into your account…lookin’ at the cellphone every minute…a little gift that gets us through…whole thing gone…spent-on diners an’ bars up an’ down the streets through town…actin’ like a big shot…give a guy a buck or two if he asked you for it…they always ask you for it…

can’t save a dime…take these odd jobs throughout the month…money under the table for mowin’ yards…or…cleanin’ up sidewalks…get that money an’ it’s gone for you know it as well…six-packs of Old Style…cheap whiskey…cigarettes….

an’ we get kicked outta sleepin’ rooms all over the place…movin’ from one town to the other…never havin’ ‘nough to cover rent…a little here an’ a little there to landlords who’d give us some time to come up with it…we never come up with it…

daddy told me not to hook-up with you…told me you couldn’t pull your weight…best thing you ever did was get on the SSI…least then there was $735 a month we could count on…otherwise we’d be right back in the streets…back in the shelters sleepin’ in bedbug beds an’ blankets that never reached your toes…

they should’ve never took the kids away…shouldn’t have done that…I think Anthony and Darlene would’ve given you a purpose in life…some kind of initiative…hell…what do I know…jumpin’ from foster home to foster home…keepin’ ’em away from us…that’s for damn sure…

just gets so lonely out here in this town…so lonely when you’re broke…

the first has come an’ gone…come an’ gone…oh well…

hey…wake-up sleepyhead…

train kept wailin’ as Mickey and i walked through town… early morn…few cars would pass-by…a semi or two…mostly nothin’…just nothin’…

what time is it…,the old biker asked…

twenty after two…

August, 1st…

yep…August, 1st…

my anniversary…

oh yeah…

yep…twenty-five years without a drink…,he said…,haven’t touched one drop…,got the news that night ’round this time an’ I haven’t had a drink since…

miss it…

no…do not…

what happened…

he lit-up a Viceroy…last one in the pack…, was livin’ down in Florida at the time…Fort Lauderdale…used to put-up beer signs in windows…big an’ small neons in bars…liquor stores…Miller Lite…Coors…Bud…all kinds of signs in green an’ red…used to dream in green an’ red…

yeah…

got the call from Kokomo ’round five in the mornin’ that my baby had been in an accident…said she probably wasn’t gonna’ make it…

sorry…

her friend drivin’ home that night had had a few too many…an’ she wrapped that old Buick ’round a tree off a curve on a back road…said she was goin’ awfully fast…they was both gone on impact…brain dead on the spot…they announced her passed away later on that night…, Mickey took a deeper drag…,I tried to make it back…tried my damndest…callin’ friends for money to loan me for a ticket…gas…took me a few days to scrape it up…missed the funeral…

don’t know what to say…don’t know what to say…

there’s only two funeral homes in Kokomo…said they filled both of ’em for my baby…whole town showed-up, started showing pictures on his phone of a young girl with a pretty smile…,that’s her…she was somethin’ boy…tell you what…she was a chunk taken outta’ the old man’s ass…was just like me…just like me…bit of a hell raiser too…her mom was the quiet one…

missed the funeral huh…

yeah…they couldn’t wait any longer…had to get my courage up…get cash to get back up to Kokomo…brought flowers to her grave…haven’t had a drink since…

no…

nope…not a single drop…things happen for a reason…