a song of myself
though I'm sure no one is listening.
And yes I've loafed long on grass
with televisions blaring.
On couches
wasted in my youth
cotton mouthed and giggling.
You can steal a glimpse still
of my head cocked weirdly
out a car window
cigarette pressed tight
in thin lipped
nirvana
as
lights and lights and lights
through darkness
blur into streaking tracers flying by on highways.
I've been down so many
and yet there are so many more.
I am still
Swoosh
the sharpest Wolfman blue,
Jack at ease
with his one leg swung haphazard
o'er the handle of an antique rocker.
And yet the man that penned it;
well......
we just don't speak anymore.
I know he's down the highway
They are all just down the highway.
Every labor loved
lost
labored
and lost again.
There is a red head in Houston
to whom I owe my soul
She gave me her's
but I balked at the bargain.
I've never liked the price.
There's a dancer out there on the highway
who once
bled from my wound
now scarred
now healed
now forgotten
My highway is silent
patently American
both endless and small
its' only traveler's me.
Behind the eyes
Between the ears
Forever trapped.
And though regret is a solemn dirge
the sweet harmony
still rings inside me
the way I still feel your body
like a jigsaw
against mine
betwixt sheets at the double tree.
Or your face
lit up backstage
as we played bullshit
with a fifty card deck
and I cocked my eyes
shuffled out that half-grin
and said you lie
like
a
girl
scout.
Oh God how sweet a life is
when it is each passing moment.
Each black and white roll
snapped off at an abandoned dog food
silo in Conroe.
Every joint we ever smoked
on the back porch
Every night we ruined carpet
in the glow effervescent light
softly hallucinating.
How I've loved the art of it all.
Every new face
Every infant hand
clasped about my fingers.
Each stop along the highway.
The tiny lies
and the giant ones.
How I worship hopeless love,
the kind you can have
but especially the one you never will.
How I loathe bondage
bred in violence or aggression
whether real, or self-inflicted.
I love the cat with its light up eyes
and the way babies seem to look right into you.
And the moon
praise God
the
moon.
I will sing myself Uncle Walt
In this tiny space where no one
waits
No one
watches
No one
sees
and
No one
hears.
This fruit will rot upon the vine
but it's solitude
will sweeten its' spirits.
I can sing belief
how you feel it
how you lose it
how you come to terms with what it really is.
I can sing joy
like freckles
in sunlight.
Like twirling in dancing
I can sing love
Like walking headlong into a screened glass door.
I still smile
my half smile
I still try
to be honest
to be useful
to be robust
to be humble
to be helpful
but mostly
to love.
I still feel it all.
Like a tangible weight
Like bricks on bricks
Like a fire inside
I still don't know if I'm alone in that.
Or just
alone in everything
trapped
behind green eyes
between ears
still
Loving you all
for being
so
much
so
in
every
moment
passing
down
a
highway
in
the
dark.
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