Southbound 57
Perpetual Change at volume
blown channels disguised
by open windows
First time past the great river
to places with more sand
and waters foreign to my tongue
A new sun
A new air to breath
and the relief of being unknown
Prepares you for death in a strange century
We could harvest the slag heaps
or move to higher ground
We’d rather go home
but roads no longer go back
to that familiar place
Where we dreamt that someday
we’d be up late at night
sharing Johnny Carson’s ashtray
“What if”, my friend Fritz has asked me. In those moments unguarded I am caught, unawares. He bludgeons me with his bitter irony. And yet I always accept more.
“What if, my friend, the universe is indeed nothing more than some vast, fetid pool of reproductive goop….”
Goop? I interrupt him, quite certain this is not a term common to 19th century German. He continues unfazed…
“…. a festering, susurrating ocean of seed and egg co-mingled. A perfect, self sustaining machine of cells, combining and recombining…”
He was again sounding more German. I decided to not fixate on the goop.
“….and all life is attuned to this symphony by olfactory bulb; no memory, only direct stimulus to the brain stem.”
Fritz comes and goes. Often he is here and only sits as a silent observer. Other times he concerns me.
“Yes, my friend. A pheromone paradigm, eh? What do you think, Thomas? In that construct what is the supreme being?”
On some occasions he simply will not leave until engaged. I had to reply.
“Well, Freddy, in that construct I will say that the supreme being is Ramses Buttplug the XVI, the Great Intergalactic Aardvark. He crawls about the catwalks above the space/time fabric, probing the goop with his long, sticky tongue. He sucks up entire planets indiscriminately with each dip from the pool, thereby dispensing justice in an entirely objective manner.”
He remained silent a while. I had almost begun to believe he had gone.
“Ja, I had forgotten about the Aardvark, but you are wrong my friend! In that construct it is we, the ants, who are supreme. Through our consumption the Aardvark is poisoned.”
His logic is ever infallible. I forever dread his coming; I forever dread his absence. He pours two tumblers of whiskey, then raises his glass in toast.
“God is dead?”
I raise my glass in reply, “He is indeed dead, for we have killed him.”
We drink in silence. Then he is gone. My friend Fritz.
All these twisted, tortured memories
have their own anatomy
Pieces only meant to fit
into certain symmetry
Something ugly shimmers in the airwaves
stealing it all
to put out on display
A subject now to all manner of decay
Hyperconnected for communion
It’s the new mental health therapy
where every psychosis is shared
The fabric of this space is folded
and goes nowhere
It’s forty years on, and now
I can walk and find myself
in hallways we once roamed
None now to remember your name
I am here now
I will bear witness
that Jay was here
His shy smile and nervous laugh
Dark eyes and hair
haunted like a beaten dog
We were mates from the Old School
our proud rural contingent
We were quiet
We were artists
and they ignored us
Until you drowned
in 16″ of water
I wasn’t there
but I know what happened
So sorry
We could not say goodbye
Furniture an abomination
Why surely the floor is our place
Thirteen inch black and white on rainy Saturday
Kukla, Fran and Ollie host a foreign film
baffled by French names
entrapped by November rains
we begin to feel the hunger pains
These days when the migraines
were blinding
No light from beneath the door
No, I’ll light the oven
Swanson’s to the rescue
Old roads traveled again, to places familiar. Places change and roads remain. Signs neglected as their namesake beckon.
Harrisburg schoolyard still in the same place, but the children are gone. The villages dotting the old 3C wither upon tenuous vines. The bricks are all still connected, with boards on her windows. With these blind eyes she stares across the lot, seeing black, white, shades of grey.
None remained here to claim their legacy. Now we are the spawn of wicked spirit, expected to atone for the sins of our fathers. Our parents voted for Nixon and were appalled when we should besmirch the law. We left these places to be left alone somewhere else because our debts will never be paid.
Tempted away, follow the lane from memory long. The library gone and the grass uncut; weeds poke through cracks in the asphalt, in waves to crash upon crumbling steps. Her stories tower still; imprisoned, her doors chained shut, yet when feet touch ground shuttered orbs blink.
A world grown alight, filmed in monovision, we come alive within the celluloid. 1972; the poingk! of the red, playground ball. It sails past the diamond fence to grapevine and briar beyond. There is Mr. Montgomery in his cardigan green, his pipe casts wreaths about his head. His back to the library, the smoke forms mirthful leprechauns like the ones that live in his soul.
Penny Hemphill in your gingham dress, we were both tall and gangly. Your kiss was soft, but we were innocent. We could not know to want more. I wondered for years later, did your eyelids remain so pink. I imagined playing dot-to-dot on your freckles and would you know me now?
We laughed at National Geographics, though we didn’t really know why. Hiding from Mrs. Schmidt in her campaign t-shirt, scowling over her pince nez. Mr. Montgomery visits with his son. Rides his bike there every day for lunch. Home from the war and never right again, but for us he was just David. It made Mr. Montgomery happy, and it made him sad.
There are no more teachers, no more students in this place. Harrisburg playground is empty before her long, brick shadow. If waters have not claimed her in fifty years I may visit again.
Minor keys descending
herald of our doom
Soundtrack for the march of time
Serpents in quicksilver and smell of voodoo
spill from monastery gates
You’ve made me what I am
and I curse you for it
No purpose for a final chapter
to a tale already ended
in every way that matters
No thread of subtext to pull
that will revive this garment
All raiments have been cast to dust
