-Dedicated to Ray Manzarek
in Memoriam
At 9, I felt like a
cadaver dog sniffing
at a lizard doorstop
when Jim Morrison
died then Manzarek
sang Tight Rope Ride
a scorching single and
it lifted me out of the
grief over losing a
rock star hero, now
as I listen to their post
Morrison albums at
Ray Manzarek’s death
I realize that a storm
damaged door with
beveled stain glass at
architectural salvage
is still a hell of a door
Gunmetal sky
a pile of bald tires
by the gasoline pump
tar strop and sandpaper–
the road
_____
Photograph by Bob Merco
It’s not a crapshoot, really.
Not a selection as random
as, say, lightning, which
has its own laws and logic,
It has to do with time
and its subdivisions,
eternity broken into
bite-sized spans of life.
Each one a mote in
an infinite eye.
Sometimes just a glance
in twilight.
I had
exactly 8 minutes
to write
on lunch break
before
I had to
get back inside
the van and
rush to work again
needed
that second paycheck
to pay for
popsicles & power rangers
and shoelaces
and maybe, I thought
this one will be
one of the
masterpieces
that will
set me free
maybe,
sure …
and maybe
rats
will walk without fear
down the boulevard
shades
around their
fucked up beady eyes
tiny red pricks erect
and challenging
the hypnotized masses.
soaking our feet
was the beginning
of my undoing,
followed by the extra log on the fire,
then the nightcap of bourbon
and coke,
the gentle way
you stroked my thinning hair
a quarter century ago
we lay in front of the fire,
flesh on moist flesh,
unabated giving,
warm giddy pleasing
of each other
but there’s little of that to do
now that we’ve reached a time
of senior discounts
and AARP mailings
shall i mourn the passing of youth
and testosterone?
reach for a pill in a mad attempt
to recapture the bull
that i was?
sure. why not?
but not tonight,
no,
not while your delicate fingers
ferry me to sleep,
your breasts
the sweetest
pillows
I keep forgetting the date, yet so much more
is at stake. I cannot not play it out,
how it would end. This one
would be worse, even
though it should be easier. No division
of property to take place, that equation
is the simplest math: you everything, me nothing.
I will take my 2 pieces of furniture, 2
end tables, the oak pocked from moving,
not factory-distressed, though I let people think so.
2 kids, 1 dog. I could probably argue
for a few linens and the cutlery
with the wooden handles I still have from college,
but you have grown so attached.
I’ll just leave those behind. Maybe.
It all depends on why we are ending it,
hypothetically, of course. If you cheated,
all bets are off. I’m taking it all, even the squirrels
at the birdfeeder. But if you just got tired
of listening to me trying to teach you
this new language I like to call open communication,
I would simply make my way back out
through the door I came in,
not so much damaged as defeated.
It’s been a long time coming
It’s going to be a long time gone
But you know that the darkest hour
Is always just before the dawn… Crosby, Stills & Nash –“ Long Time Gone”
Sometimes at night, after the last light has been doused, I panic. I reach into the dark hoping my fingers will brush against something I can hold onto.
I sleep like a drug addict. I don’t know awake from asleep until the dreams start.
Twilight—an open field—pouring rain. Helicopters overhead searching for a landing zone. I am following a white-haired general in a dress uniform. In the middle of the field there’s a gigantic wooden stage, and on the stage, Jimi Hendrix outlined in a blue spotlight. He’s all alone—bobbing up and down, wrenching the tremolo bar on his Stratocaster almost to the breaking point. He’s plugged into a wall of black amplifiers as tall as the New York City skyline, and he’s pulling impossible sounds out of his guitar: machine guns, whistling rockets, bombs bursting in air—“The Star-Spangled Banner” from hell. As we move closer to the stage, we come upon a huge lake of brown mud covered with dead bodies. The general wades in and motions for me to follow. I hesitate. He reaches out grabs my arm and yanks me into the muck. The corpses are lying on their backs, arms straight out from their shoulders, feet together, as if they’ve been posed. I try to tell him that I don’t belong here—that I’m too old—that I can’t look at any more of this shit. But he just points to another body, and shouts, “Sergeant, take a closer look. We’ve got to get a body count.” When I get down on my knees, I notice that all of the dead men are marines with missing faces. Their dog tags are gone. Only the blood-spattered chains remain around their necks. I fall forward, face down in the mire. I cannot breathe.
_____
