Jack Kerouak wrote of an America already dead
He resuscitated her, that waxen banshee
And she had strength to snort out
A final abyss
Those deathly moments somewhere
Between down and delight
Were her very best
America walked out of a political cartoon
Her voice crooked from waking
Face ferocious in daylight
America now
Shivers into morning after a sixth drunken tussle
She discovers with indifference that she is still alive
In a way
America is the thinnest, Saddest of bar creeps
On the stool farthest from the jukebox
He stammers to his feet
Massaging his torn cardigan
And whispers to the wall
That he was no longer perfect
That’s why I wrote poetry oh!
Because these versions of myself never would have found manifest
Half of life happens everyday
The other half never leaves fantasy
The guy, seen in his attic window
Burning to find voice for his pale pen imitations
Imitations of chaff burner on tiger glow
Of myself in the place where she loves me best
Cloaked in Cyprus branches, lost in the fog that we grow here
Hide and go seek with gravestones
And the darkness of life
Or lost in enumklaw and Olympia
I remember myself best
Through the spyglasses of a dozen claimed females
The watchers were many veiled
Always invisible to you, though seen through you
A dozen, but only one
Like the lone black feather on back of a peacock
Do you remember the godlike trees?
Wispy surrounds the bar
We tote glasses and stand up
All red with webs of smoke
Do you remember? That shake!
Resents being relegated to the drums
Excuse the expression, Bali Hoo!
And the insects lining the walls
Sucking down cocktails of Lilly water
And cow blood
Resent the herd of us together
