Author: admin

Last night
I watched five men
ask for drunk mustard –
steal free bikes –
and ride through
deconstructed
construction sites –
“all on the way to.”

Last night
I met a stranger – as a stranger –
instead my(usual)self – and told
her about how in the five weeks
since my phone died – I slept with
open blinds and woke to the birds –
and she asked me if I lived
in the woods –
“all on the way to.”

Last night
I said  “no” but told her
of the Wood People in
South Austin –
modern mythology
thoughtfully crafted
by the sales clerk of
the Adult Megaplexxx in response
to my question about their neighborhood
rival –  “OUR parking lot if fenced in –
THEIRS opens to two hundred people
living in the woods” –
she didn’t believe me
“all on the way to.”

Last night
A beautiful woman saved me
from a beautiful man’s couch –
I saw a lack cat
and an orange squirrel
make peace
on a fencepost – what
were they talking about –
“all on the way to.”

San’s screams shattered Francisco –
and echoed in houses across the heartland:
new thoughts slung from rustic rucksacks;
new thoughts hung on fustian wallpaper;
TRUTH slung from young tongued
bums high and strung out on that
Ameri-can’t take this shit any longer
juice.

Howlin’ Allen – drowning in teargas –
hanging out in the hallways of
the houses that raised me.
Jumpin Joe Jack – an invisible attitude –
vicarious – in my father’s atlas collection
and my led foot.
Lucid Bukowski – found me naturally:
never drink
with a straw.

Twenty-five years young and
here I was – providence provided –
where the BEAT STARTED!
I walked from the Tenderloin,
suitcase-saddled and suit-sweating,
towards the Embarcadero, getting
lost in the smoky side streets,
the steaming gut of the city,
the seedy strip clubs
showered in soda lime glass,
NEON XXX
stranded wire, and stopcock signage
LIVE GIRLS
that made me want to
sell my travelling bags –
sell my flight to Texas –
and do good bad terrible things,
I felt the fight
against OSCENITY
in my blood
just like Ginsberg
felt it in his HOWL,
his 520 copies in custody –
his two men in jail –
his “redeeming social importance.”

City Lights Bookstore shined
through the alley like a radical
beacon of history – and inside,
the hallowed wood creaked
under my innocent footsteps –
as if mocking my decision to ignore
the RADICAL words lurking in attic
in favor of the CHILDREN’S
literature in the basement.

I was in love at the time – or close enough –
and an almost lover in a book store doesn’t stand
a blind chance. So I eschewed the TRUTH
and sought out NOVELTY in the basement –
I bought her an illustrated book about a fish
that steals a whale’s hat – a book that had it all –
death and daggers – and, of course –
a Jack Kerouac T-shirt that she never once wore.

I still wear that shirt
every
single
week and wonder
what would’ve happened had I
let the floorboards guide me.

It had been at least three years since
I’d last waded the conversational depths of
maturity. Sure, I’m Mr. Old Soul,
but that just means:
I’ve accepted death –
I’ve disregarded ego –
I treat IT like an art display
on a one-museum tour.

You know,
when life lives you fast –
and backwards –
putting the ending where the
start should be –
you can’t walk
a straight line.

And IT can all seem very
strange
to you.

So in this room of straight
liners I sweat – my
cyanide cynicism
too flexed – muscle memory
of a true existentialist – and I
have to remember that
we’re all right and wrong
at the same time, all
of the time  – and perhaps true
love is loving people’s
delusions – and I love
these people here
with me –  drinking Mezcal
and talking about IT –
so maybe I should just
take a night off of
pretending to be
RIGHT about us
ALL BEING WRONG.

“We go up the mountain 
we go down the mountain” – 
the mantra – 
spit hard between steep steps and hot breaths – 
one hundred and eight times – 
to the deafening beat of gravity – 
admiring the infiniteness of leaves, petals and blades – 
an everchanging sum of parts – 
I walk down the mountain side.

“We go up the mountain we go down the mountain” 
the terrain changes fast in the backcountry – 
forest hearth – 
canopy rock – 
and glacial streams alternate – 
and often fall sideways – 
dead arms branching out omnipotently like a Ganeshian nightmare –
I know the Lord of Obstacles will lay here dead long after we leave – 
and again, before we arrive.

“We go up the mountain we go down the mountain” –
I had been here before –
half a life ago –
but feeling much longer than that –
I remembered the songs of ice melting –
a gentle respiration is mama nature’s scream – 
I remembered the clearings – 
the ascent – 
the crown – 
but not the down – 
for I was on the way up.

“We go up the mountain we go down the mountain” – 
so this is how a trail is made – 
not in climbing but in the descent – 
each muscle exerting three times the force – 
to slow it down –
no one teaches the descent – 
we run at times – 
climb duck and lunge at others – 
carving our prints into the trail into the mountain – 
no one teaches the descent – 
so I walk the end alone.

“We walk up the mountain we walk down the mountain”