dmseay

listening to a voice…
an old soul speaking…
of Buddha..of Vishnu…of Christ’s doubts…for this world…for this world..

madder than a hatter…
with language placed on policed lists…
what should be read…and shouldn’t..
this will be decided for you…

the preaching against the tide….
be an individual…
leave the masses behind…
bring forth your own truth…

that’s what Jack did…
that is what a poet does..
there is solace in singularity….

this is the prophet’s life…
and yet it is always in question…
those in fear….those who never..
those who never…

to give-up all…
to travel a lonesome road…
to not want..
and we are called crazy…not normal….
oh….please count me in..

that voice….that old soul does not speak to you…
it never did….
or maybe …..you just didn’t listen…

travelled from North to see her name….etched out on stone atop others there before her….with flowers adorning vaults….ashes to ashes…

I didn’t want that for her, the old man said, I wanted a proper burial….not burnt offerings, he looked away…taking glasses off..
rubbing blood-shot eyes….

is this what she wanted?, I asked, Did she want this?

Well, he looked at me, Yes….yes she did…..I don’t understand…but she did…

Then that’s what you do…you did the right thing…

Yeah…..I s’pose…I just hope it didn’t hurt her…

walking down 1st Avenue looking at what used to be the Irish taverns…the pubs…where horses were bet-on…books were made…all bets were off…guys talkin’ straight…pint after pint after pint…while corned-beef sandwiches were served by Paddy…or Johnny…or …..some Mick name….WASPS NOT WELCOME….

drafts of Harp…Guiness…Murphys…with black-n-tans and whiskey whiskey whiskey….guys using parking meters for walking sticks….struggling in Hell’s Kitchen for their time spent in Purgatory….sins paid for while other debts lay in wake…

tabs unpaid…killed-off before coupon redeemed…bartenders listening and souls cleansed…no broad’s allowed…gather ’round boys….

and times change….1st Avenue is no longer….Hell’s Kitchen…. no longer….New York….no longer…

a man is not a man….a minch not a minch… and a Mick just a fashion complete with a Celtic Knot branded to upper arms…

cobwebs cling to chimes…rattling in a breeze on the back porch where an eastern sun peaks through the sky…a slight song is played…ghosts hum along….

and weeds grow in a garden where wild strawberries and rose petals plucked by wind lay next to them…she would never’ve allowed that…

chairs in dust…a footstool…a butter churn…an old smoker where Tom Turkey always sat at Thanksgiving’s eve…..more wine…more wood….more love…

everything looks old now….leaves strewn cross blades of yellowed grass….and I hear ghosts calling….sometimes a shout….sometimes a whisper….they’re always around…

and constantly letting me know that I won’t be….

travels from Cleveland to Asheville to Iowa City to New Haven to Montpelier to Montreal to New York to St. Louis to Indiana to St. Louis to Cincinnati to Newport to New York to….to….to

with fierce rapid thoughts on buses running cross state lines in midnight hours and babies crying out in the dark for moms and dad’s and aunts and foster parents and drunks talking loud on cell phones to ex-lovers who broke their hearts while some kind of peace is sought….

and into hospital beds and blood drawn and madmen yelling with pretend megaphones in hand and nobody’s home while crazy broad’s offer goods and services to psych-techs with meds dispensed….Goodnight nurse….

on shelter cots and city parks…hidden in the dark away from the cops who stroll- by with sticks in hand and guns on hips…like old Wyatt Earp….lookin’ for those who hide from all…entangled within…only hoping for a miracle in the fourth quarter…just a sprig of hope…

books in bag…balking at society’s norms…and hoping for a coolness in the city heat….

head north young man…head north… and do not look back…

she had survived 911…homelessness….bouts of paranoia…failed relationships…and America…

used to talk for hours of past loves…past lives…political leanings…and Protestant beliefs…she had her views…and I had mine…

a world where anything is possible and the terror in that…,Anyone can know anything about you at any given time,she said, And they do, her eyes grew wild…

They have files on all of us, her thin lips whispered, They’re just waiting…

For what?, I asked, For who?, she looked away…over one shoulder…then the other at these questions…

For all on the lists…every single last one…I’m on a list…you’re on a list…this world is on a list…shhhhh……,she put her finger to my mouth, shhhhh

You must warn the others, another whisper, Tell them….tell them they’re coming…it’ll be too late for me….shhhh

and with that she was gone….I miss her….

Listening to Kerouac read while Davis and Coltrane pray to a jazz god on high…the muttering coolness of notes hit with soul…as Jack’s voice gives voice to us all….

the wanderer’s…the soloists…the lovers…midnight philosophers in taverns whooping and hollering out, Go man go, as poetry is read…glasses are clinked….and beats are linked….

the sounds of solace…an inner peace despite the outer-limits…walking down Clark….or Broadway….or Grand….in rain…sleet…a cold morning fog…button-up and pray to the Buddha you get home safely…

but…where is home…an apartment….a room in a bedbug bitten building of old….maybe a park bench you’ve had your eye on for weeks….only to be lost in the last quarter….

and Kerouac reads while Davis and Coltrane pray…

let us all bow our heads…

old bones hurt as rainbows…sunlight…and morning comes due…bones that have been plucked over time….leaving behind fragments here and there…someday to be discovered…
discarded in a bar under bottles of booze….or a river….picked at by a bottom-feeder…old bones…

and I said there was pain….side effects…you smiled, Who doesn’t have that? Buck-up buttercup, was your reply….with a blossomed smile….pain is just part of the process….of old bones…

that is right….the hurt of the hungry….the poor…the addicted….the scared….the whore in the street…the junkie nodded out…the gambler down on his luck…the laborer whose only vice is life…old bones…

when I’m done sweep them away…throw ’em in a pit with the other impoverished…or…like a European monk… a big pile of skulls and arms and legs and pelvic portions…..just get rid of these old bones….

bring me my new robe….

it was seventy-five outside…eighty-two in the house….an Indian blanket covered the old man as he slept in half darkness with a night-light shining….showing a path..

pop…asleep in the living-room Lazyboy….with a glass of melted ice and Pepsi can by his side….just lay there…scars exposed…liver-spots revealed…old-age had come…

how strange to look at him…this different man…no longer a traveller …neither a driver…an engineer…a cook…or a bagger…just a body in wait…

and… he doesn’t know what he’s waiting for…maybe for heaven on high…perhaps Buddha’s notion of nothingness….a vision from Vishnu….not a single prophet on the horizon…

he waits…and he waits….and he waits…maybe to go see mom….go settle a score with a father who was a roust-a-bout….or a wife….Southern gentleness who took Faulkner too far….

waiting for something…some-thing to take him away….it’s over….

and he knows it…

and he asked if faith was enough…
the belief that when all is said and done there is a heaven…a safe… warm place filled with love…a god filled with love…

his face was young…pitch black with an African tongue and whiskey on the breath…it’s the little things we’re thankful for…

I don’t know, I told him, Is that what you want your heaven to be?, a look out the bus window and a nodding of a drunken head…

this place is cold, the African said, Too cold, the kid drew in smily faces upon fogged glass…, It’s not what I thought…

No…I’m sure it’s not, picking up a dropped bottle on the floor…., Plastic…thank God for plastic, white teeth shined…

when I get to heaven…I will have the biggest mansion on the street of gold, he laughed…,The biggest…

you know what I think?

what?

I think you’re adapting to America very well….