dmseay

Is the car paid-off?, the old man looked at the bill…waving in a shaky hand…

no pop…you still owe…that note will outlive you…

we’re gonna have a talk, Texas swagger came into play, That car should be done with, he quietly mumbled, They don’t know who their fuckin’ with, slamming the monthly bill down on a Shaker table…

dad…dad….we’ll deal with it…we’ll deal with it…

everybody’s always wantin’ money, he groaned, They can keep that damn car…they can keep the house…they can keep it all…

what’re you gonna do dad?

go for a walk…a long walk…

wanting of a bus ride…out to San Francisco…The Tenderloin…back to poverty on the flip-side…goodbye Manhattan…so-long Chicago…hitchin’ on Highway 1…like a Mexican migrant…like Kerouac…like….me…

up and down the coast-line…a change of scenery…a thousand islands left behind…a seaway of icy blue…lakes not among the greats…no Michigan…no Erie…no Ontario…head west young man…

hear the jazz on streets and in taverns…spoken words thrown out in the air…everyone asking for a dollar…a quarter…whatever can be spared…and cop cars roll by…coasting along hills in midnight blue with search-lights looking for me and you….come out…come out…

looking for new land…not a home…a poet never has a home….just words and dreams..
words and dreams…and all too often…those dreams are before shut-eyes….

open ’em..

she played cello… that was years ago…now the wood and strings stand in a corner…a decorative piece…

was once a socialist…an idealist…weekends spent at the Revolutionary Bookstore…Marx and Lenin were read…The Communist Manifesto lay on a white doily by her Queen size bed…

dinners at Indian restaurants and hookahs smoked at midnight while poetry sang out…bouncing off bar-room walls in Wicker Park…now that has changed too…

I was a passing fancy….a twelve year escape…from parent’s orders…from the obscenities that make us less pure…there was no American dream…

goodbye Wicker Park…goodbye Greenwhich Village…goodbye poetry and music…

she played cello… that was years ago….

it is night-time…the sun glows… moonlight will make way…casting a sliver of silver in summer’s sky…i wait for you….

it is morning in Paris… city of love…Gypsies in church doors…streets named after poets whose words fed us…when there was hunger…

waiting for a firey ball to leave…making way for song and drink…coolness of night…

in darkness there is glistening…shimmering…thousands of stars… millions of lovers…here’s to lovers…

i wait… waiting is not so bad…i will wait…

the wine has yet to be opened…

these travels…journeys across and back across….from state to state…stopping only to breath…to share a drink….loaves…fishes…

spreading what…stories…tales of this broad in Lancaster…loves lost…new love discovered…she left too soon…I didn’t leave soon enough…

always with a soundtrack playing in my ears…a cure for pain..a love supreme…walking the razor’s edge…in search of…in search of… me…

looking at my soul with the third eye hovering above on a Greyhound en route to the Frisco Bay…a Basque dance in Boise…Dixieland blowin’ in New Orleans…a piled-high-pastrami at 2nd Avenue…the spirit craves more…

here’s to never being satisfied…for not settling…the search…the search…the search….

to constantly question…always asking…when many stopped long ago….

after four days he remembered his medicine….tiny lids marked Sun.
Mon..Tue..Wed…revealed red and blue and yellow pills in white bins with a pink B-12 vitamin added for good measure…

what day is it?, he asked; a Pepsi in one hand…a rubbing of the eyes with the other, What day is it?, again…repeating himself…

it’s Thursday pop…Thursday…

ohhhh…I guess I better catch-up, opening all previous compartments…

dad….what’re you doing dad…

what time does Kelly and Michael come-on?, a mumbled mouthful took a swig…

I don’t know dad…and it’s not Kelly and Michael anymore…how many pills did you take?, walking towards him..turning on the TV…

I don’t know….what happened to the black guy?, another drink as evidence revealed a catch-up game…

dad…you’ve got too many..
don’t take all those..

there, he smiled, all caught-up….
whose the new black guy?

I don’t know pop…I don’t know…

those backroads led us everywhere…in the dark…in search of gravel paths…parking lots…Amish farmlands for sins to take place…

were we driving north or south on Highway 8…or was it east…maybe west…just tryin’ to get back home…

and we stopped at a train track with locomotives running like old ghosts…banshees….with a hundred big-rigs behind us…trying to get a glimpse of your nakedness…your beauty…

kisses as rains fell hard on windows…pulls on ears…bites on the arm…and a car driving itself…back to a home of milk and honey…and wine while music played and played and played….

clothes left in a living room…a kitchen…a front seat…found in the morning…before a new sunrise…

I still smell her….God…what a night…

always waiting for doors to open…their doors….mine…anticipation of what’s on the other side…

love is never there…not on a couch…a car seat…a bed…a table folded for carrying purposes…always looking for the next deal…

and cash….what is cash but an opening to conversation…the constant question…how much?…never a wavering voice..
you either got it or you don’t…

the feeding of needs…of desires…from speed bumps to pock marks…to jaundice skin and humps on shoulders…what’s behind the curtains…..

America meets in parks…in bathroom stalls..shopping mall food courts…hotel banquet halls…corporate board rooms…on the prowl for the next fix…

come….get your fill…but…nothing is gratis…

the woods were on fire that night…deep into the dark flames from trees shot to the sky…with sirens sounding and lights flashing while a community watched….abandoning their slumber….

family men…husbands…fathers…fought for the safety of all while moms kept kids by their sides…looking-on at a blaze burning Pines and Dogwoods and Oaks and Hickory…a childhood memory burned to ash…

a magical place where cowboys and Indians chased one another down paths and into cool waters on hot Arkansas summer days…..

stratagies on walkee-talkees by American soldiers fighting an imaginary war while correspondents on TV told of real horror…

dirt bikes criss crossing and jumping over brush and old tires and teens..and anything found in abandonment…one man’s trash…

those trees burned until sun-up…til coffee was poured from thermoses….doughnuts passed around….and talk of next week’s Lions Club chicken barbecue…how many pounds of potatoes need peeled…mustard or mayonaise…

little by little lives move-on….transitions are made…kids grow-up…families disolve…communities come together less and less….

and wood burns….playtime is done away with…everything is temporary…

maybe that forest will grow again…perhaps dreams can go without arrest….

who knows….we cling to the past…images never leave us…and we have that to be thankful for…

Jehovah’s Witnesses stand on street corners preaching their word of god….only so few allowed through the pearly gates…the rest of us….well…

Bobby’s at the barber shop cutting fades and Caesar’s….cheapest prices in town…leave happy or your money back…

lovers sit in Washington Square Park as tourists take selfies and art students disrobe…various poses struck…Midwesterners look-on….pointing….whispers….we’re not in Kansas anymore…

I sit in an old man’s bar….drinking bitters….while grown-ups proclaim and procrastinate…the day has barely begun…another Scotch and soda…

the Manhattan church bells ring..
St. Patrick’s opens their doors….a hundred Mexicans come into pray….twenty Hindus look at art adorned walls…and Fundamentalists judge as only Fundamentalists can do, I don’t see what all the fuss is about, is overheard as they stroll down aisles…

and the acts of commerce begin again…the pushing…the shoving…the phone calls to sell…sell…sell…buy…buy….buy…boys with cellphones dialing for dollars….and cleavage is shown in shrink’s offices by pharmaceutical reps sealing deals….

I sit drinking bitters…listening….watching all from a corner seat…a swivel to the left and a turn to the right…as public bathrooms are cleansed and junkies nod out behind buildings….dumpsters…peep-show booths while Bollywood music plays and plays and plays…

the juke box booms Lush Life…followed by My Favorite Things…and glasses clink…the brushes wash…and all is forgiven…

I’ll have another…