I met Neal Cassady last night in a waking dream sitting across from me with his back turned to the noise; the bar was loud. He repeatedly leaned forward and asking if I wanted a smoke.
        He looked just like Neal, talked like him. I hated and admired him just like I would the real Neal Cassady. His mind was incredible; beyond the worries of mortality, no thoughts or pains of hubris. He had the candor that I lacked only because I hadn't the nerve to jump first. When I asked him if he truly was the great Cassady, he stared at me from across the table with a wry smile; patted his breast pocket down, leaned back and said as he turned with precision out of his chair,
        "Let's go for a smoke".
        Such practiced determination, he was already outside before I had put on my coat. Of course I had no cigarettes of my own, he had expected me to bring one for the both of us. But I for one expected him to procure an entire carton by the time I was outside; one bent cigarette from every Saintly being at the bar.
        And what a bar! Great young gone gals; dressed in short skirts and long autumn coats; wool scarves around their necks and under chins beneath cold steel eyes. Ahh, forever young the white dresses and mistresses of the college bar.
        By the time I had opened the door and exhaled my first breath of the crisp night air, Neal was playing the part of locomotive engine with a German couple who were smoking and pretending to be Parisian. The three of them were standing in formation of a triangle on the edge of a stone staircase with a railing leading down into a steep lawn with Neal’s back facing the moon. It was all arranged in a perfect geometric mandala of overlapping Platonic solids.
        As I approached the cloud, Neal was recounting the tale of a nurse he had lain in the backseat of her father's station wagon in Nebraska in the heat of the afternoon sun. The German man was stocky and ill-dressed for the weather. He told me later that his name was Heinrich, but I did not believe him even though I knew he had nothing to hide. The woman whom I believed to be only his girlfriend told me, with a thick German accent, that her name was Deline. I believed her. She was well-dressed for the weather and smoking heavily; style is everything.
        "They've graciously offered to roll us a dozen", Neal expelled between great gusts of smoke, a boyish grin smeared on his face by the thousand red lips and wet ***** of passed consequence. Even in the light of a single lamppost coming through the haze that billowed forth from the three talking chimneys, I could still see a sheen in Neal's eye. The sort of sheen that implied hooliganisms. The sort of sheen you see before a person flies off the handle. The exact sheen you see before you wake up tomorrow in the late light of the afternoon, wondering who the Hell took your hand last night and jumped into total darkness with you. That is, if there was somebody around to take your hand.
        I liked Neal.
                He had a style about him that reminded me of a dark velvet curtain. Once you had passed through that curtain in your business casual attire, you witnessed the burgundy coloured stain of truth. There was no backpedaling after that; your chains would knot up and you would fall off the ride if you tried.
        The German couple looked around at their surroundings and the both of us with a degree of boredom. I had seen them earlier in the bar, they looked bored then too. Neither had spoken to the other once and I was beginning to feel like we were exasperating them.
        “Who cares? They offered to roll us a dozen” I thought. What did it matter how Neal got them to do it, they've offered twelve cigarettes and now they belong to us.
        Deline handed Neal and I six cigarettes each; they were magnificently rolled.
        “Goodbye, then! Thank you for your business”, Neal said and slid down the railing to the lawn below, lighting his cigarette mid-slide. I had just lit mine and started after him down the staircase. I turned around and spoke clumsily with a cigarette bobbing at the corner of my mouth,                      
        “Yes… thanks”, and left without another word.

        Neal walked with sporadic intensity; arms often stabbing out into the blanket of night; legs that would walk straight and stiff but then bent and fast with sudden changes as if he was preparing to spring off into the evening of speckled lampposts and smoke. His head bobbed West to East, North to South, and all Axis’ between X, Y and Z. The more I stared at this character whom I called Neal the more I thought of him as an illusion of my own delusions. When I had finished that thought, Neal had spun around and laughed a good hearty and honest laugh; he seemed to have read my mind and proceeded to flick the space between by eyebrows with his thumb and *******. The pain was real enough. This Neal must be real, unless I had gone full mad with lunacy. We blasted off down the avenue which connected the college bar to the dormitories and the library after that.
        Beyond the avenue laid the cozy valley of goodnight downtown with all it’s lights of sodium pearls below and us upon the hill top looking down with eager intensity. Neal gave another rounded laugh and stared with mad eyes above my head and pointed straight up into the sky at Sirius.
        “Tonight, yes yes, we go out. Not just out, my dear friend, but up. Yes yes, to the great up-and-over. Beyond the next stop we absolutely must climb.”

         I don’t know what mad beast had possessed me that evening but I followed this ghost; this great memory of romantic America into the heart of the infinite night.
        “Good gal Deline”, said Neal

        “Who?” I replied
        “Nimble fingers, strong hands for the German working class” he said, “Great gone gal. Good gal. Fine gal by all standards of beauty and sleek german ingenuity”
        “Hmm”, I responded inhaling my cigarette deeply. The Germans were just fine at rolling, but the tobacco was all American. It was harder and harder for me to physically keep up with Neal. He kept speeding off sporadically twenty feet in front of me, sometimes stopping and spouting at young folks asking for cigarettes. 

        “But you’ve already got one” They would say

        “Yes yes, but it’s for when I’m not smoking one is why I want one”, Neal would answer as he trailed off further and further down the road. They thought he was mad, but they all smiled nonetheless.

        My curiosity was brimming. Who was this mad man? Who was this loon impersonator of the American night? I could not stand by my idle silence and unquestioning.
        “What’s the plan tonight?”, I asked

        “What plan? No good plan. Only great plan and great plain rising higher and higher and we will be up all night but on top of the world for we must climb up and up forever until we can climb no more, and then after we can climb no more then we must climb a little further for life itself is nothing more than an infinite climb ever higher and why not get there faster than all the rest?”

        I had stopped walking and Neal’s voice echoed and vibrated the walls of the stairs between the library and the meal hall. His voice was like that of mountain that had slid beneath the ground reborn into an endless peak above.
“Jailbird Cassidy. Great bellowing Cassidy all energy and no direction, but getting there in no time just the same Cassidy”, I thought to myself.
“I trust you Neal”, I had said out loud.
“Not yet! First great big night time breakfast for you and me, for one can not climb without a good energy and good rounded stomach digested of food and stories.”

We had wanted to leave our homes before six in the morning
but left late and lazy at ten or ten-thirty with hurried smirks
and heads turned to the road, West
driving out against the noonward horizon
and visions before us of the great up-and-over

and tired we were already of stiff-armed driving neurotics in Montreal
and monstrous foreheaded yellow bus drivers
ugly children with long middle fingers
and tired we were of breaking and being yelled at by beardless bums
but thought about the beards at home we loved
and gave a smile and a wave nonetheless

Who were sick and tired of driving by nine
but then had four more hours still
with half a tank
then a third of a tank
then a quarter of a tank
then no tank at all
except for the great artillery halt and discovery
of our tyre having only three quarters of its bolts

Saved by the local sobriety
and the mystic conscious kindness of the wise and the elderly
and the strangers: Autoshop Gale with her discount familiar kindness;
Hilda making ready supper and Ray like I’ve known you for years
that offered me tools whose functions I’ve never known
and a handshake goodbye

     and "yes we will say hello to your son in Alberta"
     and "yes we will continue safely"
     and "no you won’t see us in tomorrow’s paper"
     and tired I was of hearing about us in tomorrow’s paper

Who ended up on a road laughing deliverance
in Ralphton, a small town hunting lodge
full of flapjacks and a choir of chainsaws
with cheap tomato juice and eggs
but the four of us ended up paying for eight anyway

and these wooden alley cats were nothing but hounds
and the backwoods is where you’d find a cheap child's banjo
and cheap leather shoes and bear traps and rat traps
and the kinds of things you’d fall into face first

Who sauntered into a cafe in Massey
that just opened up two weeks previous
where the food was warm and made from home
and the owner who swore to high heaven
and piled her Sci-Fi collection to the ceiling
in forms of books and VHS

but Massey herself was drowned in a small town
where there was little history and heavy mist
and the museum was closed for renovations
and the stores were run by diplomats
or sleezebag no-cats
and there was one man who wouldn’t show us a room
because his baby sitter hadn’t come yet
but the babysitter showed up through the backdoor within seconds
though I hadn't seen another face

        and the room was a landfill
        and smelled of stale cat **** anyhow
        and the lobby stacked to the ceiling with empty beer box cans bottles
        and the taps ran cold yellow and hot black through spigots

but we would be staying down the street
at the inn of an East-Indian couple

who’s eyes were not dilated 
and the room smelled
lemon-scented

and kept on driving lovingly without a care in the world
but only one of us had his arms around a girl
and how lonely I felt driving with Jacob
in the fog of the Agawa pass;

following twin red eyes down a steep void mass
where the birch trees have no heads
and the marshes pool under the jagged foothills
that climb from the water above their necks

that form great behemoths
with great voices bellowing and faces chiselled hard looking down
and my own face turned upward toward the rain

Wheels turning on a black asphalt river running uphill around great Superior
that is the ocean that isn’t the ocean but is as big as the sea
and the cloud banks dig deep and terrible walls

and the sky ends five times before night truly falls
and the sun sets slower here than anywhere
but the sky was only two miles high and ten long anyway

The empty train tracks that seldom run
and some rails have been lifted out
with a handful of spikes that now lay dormant

and the hill sides start to resemble *******
or faces or the slow curving back of some great whale

-and those, who were finally stranded at four pumps
with none but the professional Jacob reading great biblical instructions at the nozzle
nowhere at midnight in a town surrounded

by moose roads
                             moose lanes
                                                     moose rivers
and everything mooses

ending up sleeping in the maw of a great white wolf inn
run by Julf or Wolf or John but was German nonetheless

and woke up with radios armed
and arms full
and coffee up to the teeth
with teeth chattering
and I swear to God I saw snowy peaks
but those came to me in waking dream:

"Mountains dressed in white canvas
gowns and me who placed
my hands upon their *******
that filled the sky"

Passing through a buffet of inns and motels
and spending our time unpacking and repacking
and talking about drinking and cheap sandwiches
but me not having a drink in eight days

and in one professional inn we received a professional scamming
and no we would not be staying here again
and what would a trip across the country be like
if there wasn’t one final royal scamming to be had

and dreams start to return to me from years of dreamless sleep:

and I dream of hers back home
and ribbons in a raven black lattice of hair
and Cassadaic exploits with soft but honest words

and being on time with the trains across the plains  
and the moon with a shower of prairie blonde
and one of my father with kind words
and my mother on a bicycle reassuring my every decision

Passing eventually through great plains of vast nothingness
but was disappointed in seeing that I could see
and that the rumours were false
and that nothingness really had a population
and that the great flat land has bumps and curves and etchings and textures too

beautiful bright golden yellow like sprawling fingers
white knuckled ablaze reaching up toward the sun
that in this world had only one sky that lasted a thousand years

and prairie driving lasts no more than a mountain peak
and points of ember that softly sigh with the one breath
of our cars windows that rushes by with gratitude for your smile

And who was caught up with the madness in the air
with big foaming cigarettes in mouths
who dragged and stuffed down those rolling fumes endlessly
while St. Jacob sang at the way stations and billboards and the radio
which was turned off

and me myself and I running our mouth like the coughing engine
chasing a highway babe known as the Lady Valkyrie out from Winnipeg
all the way to Saskatoon driving all day without ever slowing down
and eating up all our gas like pez and finally catching her;

      Valkyrie who taught me to drive fast
      and hovering 175 in slipstreams
      and flowing behind her like a great ghost Cassady ******* in dreamland Nebraska
      only 10 highway crossings counted from home.

Lady Valkyrie who took me West.
Lady Valkyrie who burst my wings into flame as I drew a close with the sun.
Lady Valkyrie who had me howl at slender moon;

     who formed as a snowflake
     in the light on the street
     and was gone by morning
     before I asked her name

and how are we?
and how many?

Even with old Tom devil singing stereo
and riding shotgun the entire trip from day one
singing about his pony, and his own personal flophouse circus,
and what was he building in there?

There is a fair amount of us here in these cars.
Finally at light’s end finding acquiescence in all things
and meeting with her eye one last time; flashed her a wink and there I was, gone.
Down the final highway crossing blowing wind and fancy and mouth puttering off
roaring laughter into the distance like some tremendous Phoenix.

Goodnight Lady Valkyrie.

The evening descends and turns into a sandwich hysteria
as we find ourselves riding between cities of transports
and that one mad man that passed us speeding crazy
and almost hit head-on with Him flowing East

and passed more and more until he was head of the line
but me driving mad lunacy followed his tail to the bumper
passing fifteen trucks total to find our other car
and felt the great turbine pull of acceleration that was not mine

mad-stacked behind two great beasts
and everyone thought us moon-crazy; Biblical Jake
and Mad Hair Me driving a thousand
eschewing great gusts of wind speed flying

Smashing into the great ephedrine sunset haze of Saskatoon
and hungry for food stuffed with the thoughts of bedsheets
off the highway immediately into the rotting liver of dark downtown
but was greeted by an open Hertz garage
with a five-piece fanfare brass barrage
William Tell and a Debussy Reverie
and found our way to bedsheets most comfortably

Driving out of Saskatoon feeling distance behind me.
Finding nothing but the dead and hollow corpses of roadside ventures;

more carcasses than cars
and one as big as a moose
and one as big as a bear
and no hairier

and driving out of sunshine plain reading comic book strip billboards
and trees start to build up momentum
and remembering our secret fungi in the glove compartment
that we drove three thousand kilometres without remembering

and we had a "Jesus Jacob, put it away brother"
and went screaming blinded by smoke and paranoia
and three swerves got us right
and we hugged the holy white line until twilight

And driving until the night again takes me foremast
and knows my secret fear in her *****
as the road turns into a lucid *** black and makes me dizzy
and every shadow is a moose and a wildcat and a billy goat
and some other car

and I find myself driving faster up this great slanderous waterfall until I meet eye
with another at a thousand feet horizontal

then two eyes

then a thousand wide-eyed peaks stretching faces upturned to the celestial black
with clouds laid flat as if some angel were sleeping ******* on a smokestack
and the mountains make themselves clear to me after waiting a lifetime for a glimpse
then they shy away behind some old lamppost and I don’t see them until tomorrow

and even tomorrow brings a greater distance with the sunlight dividing stone like 'The Ancient of Days'
and moving forward puts all into perspective

while false cabins give way
and the gas stations give way
and the last lamppost gives way
and its only distance now that will make you true
and make your peaks come alive

Like a bullrush, great grey slopes leap forth as if branded by fire
then the first peaks take me by surprise
and I’m told that these are nothing but children to their parents
and the roads curve into a gentle valley
and we’re in the feeding zone

behind the gates of some great geological zoo
watching these lumbering beasts
finishing up some great tribal *******
because tomorrow they will be shrunk
and tomorrow ever-after smaller

Nonetheless, breathless in turn I became
it began snowing and the pines took on a different shape
and the mountains became covered white
and great glaciers could be seen creeping
and tourists seen gawking at waterfalls and waterfowls
and fowl play between two stones a thousand miles high

climbing these Jasper slopes flying against wind and stone
and every creak lets out its gentle tone and soft moans
as these tyres rub flat against your back
your ancient skin your rock-hard bones

and this peak is that peak and it’s this one too
and that’s Temple, and that’s Whistler
and that’s Glasgow and that’s Whistler again
and those are the Three Sisters with ******* ablaze

and soft glowing haze your sun sets again among your peaks
and we wonder how all these caves formed
and marvelled at what the flood brought to your feet
as roads lay wasted by the roadside

in the epiphany of 3:00am realizing
that great Alta's straights and highway crossings
are formed in torturous mess from mines of 'Mt. Bleed'
and broken ribs and liver of crushed mountain passes
and the grey stones taxidermied and peeled off
and laid flat painted black and yellow;
the highways built from the insides
of the mountain shells

Who gave a “What now. New-Brunswick?”

and a “What now, Quebec, and Ontario, and Manitoba, and Saskatchewan";
**** fools clumsily dancing in the valleys; then the rolling hills; then the sea that was a lake
then the prairies and not yet the mountains;

running naked in formation with me at the lead
and running naked giving the finger to the moon
and the contrails, and every passing blur on the highway
dodging rocks, and sandbars
and the watchful eye of Mr. and Mrs. Law
and holes dug-up by prairie dogs
and watching with no music
as the family caravans drove on by

but drove off laughing every time until two got anxious for bed and slowed behind
while the rambling Jacob and I had to wait in the half-moon spectacle
of a black-tongue asphalt side-road hacking darts and watching for grizzlies
for the other two to finish up with their birthday *** exploits
though it was nobodies birthday

and then a timezone was between us
 and they were in the distant future
and nobodies birthday was in an hour from now

then everything was good
and everyone was satiated
then everything was a different time again
and I was running on no sleep or a lot of it
leaping backward in time every so often
like gaining a new day but losing space on the surface of your eye

but I stared up through curtains of starlight to mother moon
and wondered if you also stared
and was dumbfounded by the majesty of it all

and only one Caribou was seen the entire trip
and only one live animal, and some forsaken deer
and only a snake or a lonesome caterpillar could be seen crossing such highway straights
but the water more refreshing and brighter than steel
and glittered as if it were hiding some celestial gem
and great ravines and valleys flowed between everything
and I saw in my own eye prehistoric beasts roaming catastrophe upon these plains
but the peaks grew ever higher and I left the ground behind

Neal Cassady
February 8 ,1926  -  February 4 , 1968
San Miguel D'Alene , Mexico

Dead from extreme exposure
Four days short of forty-two

Only fitting , next to a railroad track
He had many words to haul back

The wolf sleeps next to the silver rail
Howling at a silver moon that fell

I see here he drove a ******* Cadillac
Through the San Francisco streets

With the top down
Smiling free , it was meant to be

Life is a quasar

When I die
I don't care what happens to my body
throw ashes in the air, scatter 'em in East River
bury an urn in Elizabeth New Jersey, B'nai Israel Cemetery
But l want a big funeral
St. Patrick's Cathedral, St. Mark's Church, the largest synagogue in
        Manhattan
First, there's family, brother, nephews, spry aged Edith stepmother
        96, Aunt Honey from old Newark,
Doctor Joel, cousin Mindy, brother Gene one eyed one ear'd, sister-
        in-law blonde Connie, five nephews, stepbrothers & sisters
        their grandchildren,
companion Peter Orlovsky, caretakers Rosenthal & Hale, Bill Morgan--
Next, teacher Trungpa Vajracharya's ghost mind, Gelek Rinpoche,
        there Sakyong Mipham, Dalai Lama alert, chance visiting
        America, Satchitananda Swami
Shivananda, Dehorahava Baba, Karmapa XVI, Dudjom Rinpoche,
        Katagiri & Suzuki Roshi's phantoms
Baker, Whalen, Daido Loorie, Qwong, Frail White-haired Kapleau
        Roshis, Lama Tarchen --
Then, most important, lovers over half-century
Dozens, a hundred, more, older fellows bald & rich
young boys met naked recently in bed, crowds surprised to see each
        other, innumerable, intimate, exchanging memories
"He taught me to meditate, now I'm an old veteran of the thousand
        day retreat --"
"I played music on subway platforms, I'm straight but loved him he
        loved me"
"I felt more love from him at 19 than ever from anyone"
"We'd lie under covers gossip, read my poetry, hug & kiss belly to belly
        arms round each other"
"I'd always get into his bed with underwear on & by morning my
        skivvies would be on the floor"
"Japanese, always wanted take it up my *** with a master"
"We'd talk all night about Kerouac & Cassady sit Buddhalike then
        sleep in his captain's bed."
"He seemed to need so much affection, a shame not to make him happy"
"I was lonely never in bed **** with anyone before, he was so gentle my
        stomach
shuddered when he traced his finger along my abdomen ****** to hips-- "
"All I did was lay back eyes closed, he'd bring me to come with mouth
        & fingers along my waist"
"He gave great head"
So there be gossip from loves of 1948, ghost of Neal Cassady commin-
        gling with flesh and youthful blood of 1997
and surprise -- "You too? But I thought you were straight!"
"I am but Ginsberg an exception, for some reason he pleased me."
"I forgot whether I was straight gay queer or funny, was myself, tender
        and affectionate to be kissed on the top of my head,
my forehead throat heart & solar plexus, mid-belly. on my *****,
        tickled with his tongue my behind"
"I loved the way he'd recite 'But at my back allways hear/ time's winged
        chariot hurrying near,' heads together, eye to eye, on a
        pillow --"
Among lovers one handsome youth straggling the rear
"I studied his poetry class, 17 year-old kid, ran some errands to his
        walk-up flat,
seduced me didn't want to, made me come, went home, never saw him
        again never wanted to... "
"He couldn't get it up but loved me," "A clean old man." "He made
        sure I came first"
This the crowd most surprised proud at ceremonial place of honor--
Then poets & musicians -- college boys' grunge bands -- age-old rock
        star Beatles, faithful guitar accompanists, gay classical con-
        ductors, unknown high Jazz music composers, funky trum-
        peters, bowed bass & french horn black geniuses, folksinger
        fiddlers with dobro tamborine harmonica mandolin auto-
        harp pennywhistles & kazoos
Next, artist Italian romantic realists schooled in mystic 60's India,
        Late fauve Tuscan painter-poets, Classic draftsman *****-
        chusets surreal jackanapes with continental wives, poverty
        sketchbook gesso oil watercolor masters from American
        provinces
Then highschool teachers, lonely Irish librarians, delicate biblio-
        philes, *** liberation troops nay armies, ladies of either ***
"I met him dozens of times he never remembered my name I loved
        him anyway, true artist"
"Nervous breakdown after menopause, his poetry humor saved me
        from suicide hospitals"
"Charmant, genius with modest manners, washed sink, dishes my
        studio guest a week in Budapest"
Thousands of readers, "Howl changed my life in Libertyville Illinois"
"I saw him read Montclair State Teachers College decided be a poet-- "
"He turned me on, I started with garage rock sang my songs in Kansas
        City"
"Kaddish made me weep for myself & father alive in Nevada City"
"Father Death comforted me when my sister died Boston l982"
"I read what he said in a newsmagazine, blew my mind, realized
        others like me out there"
Deaf & Dumb bards with hand signing quick brilliant gestures
Then Journalists, editors's secretaries, agents, portraitists & photo-
        graphy aficionados, rock critics, cultured laborors, cultural
        historians come to witness the historic funeral
Super-fans, poetasters, aging Beatnicks & Deadheads, autograph-
        hunters, distinguished paparazzi, intelligent gawkers
Everyone knew they were part of 'History" except the deceased
who never knew exactly what was happening even when I was alive

                                                February 22, 1997

like a hot-wheel guided by
a holy hand above, he makes
impossible feats as if the car
creates the road, his free hand
is just as busy making
fanatic gestures to guide
scrambled linguistics
or it rests out the window
seeking a courtship
with the wind
clasping the door handle, wide-eyed
the passenger rides safely adjacent to Fear,
but at every turn Momentum carries Fear deep into the heart
where its is pumped via veins, icing the body
with awe inspiring visions.
Visions controlled by the last true
American Driver.
He drives like only a thief
can, poised by paranoia, pure thrill
achieved only through the drive, race or
getaway.

in a past life,
Neal was a great Outlaw
outrunning potbelly sheriffs
to plump on the saddle to rival
the great horsemen of their day
he’d chase trains down,
taming and taunting them
with speed and skill.
or
perhaps
he was a horse himself.
a terrific thoroughbred
bluegrass fed.
tritting
   trotting
his way to a Triple Crown.
trainers fed him Benzedrine
to gage the beast. they feared
he would run through the finish line
and straight across the country
like a maniacal madman
looking for the last
true road

I'm glad you died
By the train tracks
In Mexico, alone
With the lizards and
Horned toads
When you did
When the mood
Was High and
The momentum
Rolled in your favor,
I'm glad you died
When you did
Before rock n' roll again
And again and disco
And no Jazz, no bop
And waves crashed
And undertoe tore
At Tired,
I'm glad you died
When you did
With movement, with power
And you should hear 'em
Talk about you and the boys
With ancient lips and Beautiful
And god smiles my face
And god still cries for
His Muse,
I'm glad you died
When you did
Before it all changed
And We lost the momentum
And replaced it
With sleep

I'm glad you died
By the train tracks
In Mexico, alone
With the lizards and
Horned toads
When you did,
When the mood
Was High and
The momentum
Rolled in your favor,
I'm glad you died
When you did
Before rock n' roll again
And again and disco
And no Jazz, no bop
And waves crashed
And undertoe tore at Tired,
I'm glad you died
When you did
With movement, with power
And you should hear 'em
Talk about you and the boys
With ancient lips and Beautiful
I'm glad you died
When you did
Before it all changed
And They took away
Want and replaced it
With electronic death

back on the railroad
caught between the current
and the cold
how is it ol' Cassady died?
they say he rode the tracks
all the way to Avalon
say it was exposure
that got him in the end
secobarbital and second hand smoke
waiting on a wet sunrise
that never came
counting railroad ties
half way to infinity
hell of a way to go
the hero of two generations
hell of a way to go
not with a bang
--as they say--
no one there to hear the whimper
4am ticket to shambhala

Hank gave up the grief
weeks before he died
crippled and old
poor *******
Bukowski could
hardly walk
down those hallways
to hell
maybe Hem did it best
Ti Jean died from that almighty
weight on his shoulders
unhappy with a dead liver
and a dead spirit. yes,
Hem did it best it seems
him and Hunter
--football season is over--
felt the world
slipping out
quick as it came
so they both put a
quick one to the brain

all of my old friends
are dead now
one way tickets to Shangri-La
I see them
they all walk the tracks
but they don't wait up
they don't wait up

light one for me
Hank
I'll be there soon enough

On my last day in Columbus, which
didn't feel
like my last day in Columbus
we sat on the stairs outside your apartment
overlooking the courtyard
as you chain-smoked cigarettes doing everything
very quickly. Saying
we're on the verge of it, I could be Kerouac and you
could be Ginsberg or Cassady, and all of this could be our
dharma bums.

What an uncommon and unmistakable howl that was, Joe.
The clouds moved towards us so quickly, but
until we focused on the stars, more fixed in the sky
those clouds didn't seem to be moving at all.
It was something about the courtyard you said.
It's all very prosical, you said.
I nodded because it didn't make sense.
You put out your last cigarette for the night and I
walked away from you sitting there
in the rearview of my life.

(Sal Paradise never saw Dean Moriarty again.
Jack Kerouac and Neal Cassady were lifelong friends.)

Tell me would you rather be a star or an icon?
No hard feelings let's let bygones be bygones
Because by the time that I'm done it'll all be gone
And that time has come now bang the gong

Poetry takes over me its in my blood
Millions of ideas overflow and flood
I'm the guy who can't explain the things that he does
Before I can finish one the next one's already begun
Call me Bush cause I make preemptive strikes
Late at night, can't sleep I got night terrors
I'm a writer, human error
Make mistakes, but never fake
Verbal assaults, symbolic somersaults
You never spot it, I got it, Haley's Comet  
Get it? got it? Good
What is this amateur hour?
Over these insects I tower
And I leave 'em with a sour taste in their mouths
Too many syllables to count, the can't figure out how
This came to light how this came to be
How someone can be so lyrically and poetically skilled
I'm strong willed to make a killing
To put my name in the top billing
That's T-O-M-M-Y J-O-H-N-S-O-N
Don't wear it out or make me spell it again
The rhythm and rhyme is mine
To take and break, mutilate and manipulate
Into one of my mutated manifestations of soul
So if we go blow for blow
Just roll with the punches
Because I'm no where near done yet
Just one more cycle of sun rise and sun set

Would you rather be a has-been or a never-was?
Authentic booing or half hearted bogus applause?  
Juggling juxtaposition and pulverizing paradox
Opening eyes and dropping jaws

I write for the eccentric and excluded
The ones who know life doesn't have instruction included
The agitators, aggravators
Trouble making perpetrators
The ones high in the sky yet still down to earth, the least common denominators
The imaginative innovation of evolved revolutionaries
And the intuitive message they all carry
I'm inspired by the ones who came before me
Ginsberg, Morrison, Dylan and Cassady
Shakespeare, Fitzgerald and Lennon all influence me
To write and have my name along with theirs on someone's shelf
That's why I'm here everyday writing away to make a name for myself
I'm after the Holy Grail
Na, not a Pulitzer or Nobel
But moment someone tells you, "Hey man I love your stuff"
That right there is enough for me
To know people would take the time to read what I put out
Then without a doubt
I'd know I took the right route
And they all love what I write about
Life, death and everything in between
Sick subhumans and saddened circus clowns
We're all here to see the tides change and the tables turn
There is no turning back now
Sorry if it's too loud
All you can do is kneel and bow
Just wait for it all to change
Keep your confidence up but your ego down
Life is round , the earth is round
It isn't flat and new land's been found
I claim it in my name
And in the name of the game
The game that you we're never even a player in
So don't make a sound, just watch me win

Would you rather be an unknown or a memory?
To live a life of fame or infamy?
To die heroic or live villainy
The subject of a biographic documentary
Remembered for centuries upon centuries

You're good but I'm the greatest
Your're over rated but I'm the highness anticipated awaited
You're on the wait-list, I'm on the A-list
I'm on the tip of everyone's tongue on a daily basis
You keep yourself on repeat on the lamest playlist
So press pause and listen to my words so heinous
Your head is so vacant you haven't got the faintest idea what I'm saying
You're tasteless and I don't care if I'm hated
You play it safe and I like to make bold statements and live dangerous
And I can use my abilities to either trash you or slash you
But I just wanna aid a few of our brothers and sisters
To enlightenment so they can see the bigger picture
And expel all the ******* behind-the-back whispers
Been walking on eggshells and tip toeing around broken glass so long I got blisters
**** the Benedict Arnold's, Judases and *** kissers
Kiss them all good bye
As we blow the whole bunch of 'em sky high
Oh my is that a threat?
Na but you bet it's a ******* promise
Pay homage to Dylan Thomas
And have a drink to him
Until the whole room spins
And we witness the after affects of 9/11
I still don't understand how we got to Iraq if t was Afghanistan
Eh, whatever nevermind I don't want to get into that rant again
But I will give you some food for thought
That you ought to be eating
Why is it people are meeting life with such opposition
It's because we are taught to combat it with these fix positions
Well I've got new and improved fool proof fire power new way
And I'm about to press ignition
I'm refurbished, recondition out of remission
Learn don't live in the past
No looking back live in the now
Don't worry about tomorrow it'll all work out
The Trayvon Martin and George Zimmerman case
Isn't about gun laws or even race
It's about the morals and values no one cares to save
The sooner we all realize that the sooner we can have better days

Oh wait I feel spurt of verbal diarrhea about to take place
This is coming from me to you, the fact of the matter is you're through
I'm impervious, immune and merciless
Murderous, your nervousness, you're subservient and worthless
I'm losing my patience with you, I'll try to make this painless
You're going outta here nameless as the whole crowd goes zero gravity weightless
Because I'm a pile driving, stylizing craftsmen of words
And you missed your turn, get burned never return
I write so ridiculous
You write conspicuous
I'm am limitless
They think I'm frivolous and have a bad attitude
They just envious of my monumental aptitude
Its not writing it's typing
Clickty clack clack just like Kerouac
I won't take it back that's just the way I attack literature
I have a big vocabulary, I like onomatopoeia not a big fan of nomenclature  
I put myself in every poem
In every verse or stanza
In every line and word
From storytelling to dispelling propaganda
As for you I don't know
I guess ****** was all she wrote
I got my back tot he ropes
I take e'm and make a noose
It was duck duck goose now you lose
You lost out to a lower class *** head
A brain dead writers who straight outta special ed.
But look how much of my work has been read
No more need be said
I'm ahead of my time and miles a head of you
I got time to stop for a drink
And a trip to the edge of reason to the brink
Then come back again and I'll still be ahead and on top
What you go?t Nothing
Stop bluffing
I'm huffing pure creativity
I listen to the voices inside of me
Telling me to end this quick
And I agree it's time to cut this session short
I think that's the long and short of it
I'm boss and you're a lost cause
You may be the Lion of Zion
Or even Titan of the Horizon
But when we're both gone
You'll be some guy who wrote
And I'll be an Icon

The feeling
Is a
Tingle

Creeps up your spine
Like the first crazed chill
After seeing
A former girlfriend
You weren't expecting to see

The feeling
Is reading a passage
Of one of the greats
Line by beautifully painful line
And feeling a hopeless
Falling like Alice
Touch of timeless genius

The feeling tears down the stale walls of life
Making everything impossible
Possible

The feeling is like a
Birth
The pushing of the keys
The sweat of the effort
The pain of the labor
And the relief
Of the final push

The feeling life lives on in the work
But with time
Will come
Death

Much like
How the baby grows
So does
The word

But,
The relevance
The importance
The fire
Will soon diminish
To a faint hidden ember

So to live in one's time
Is to be living
Dying
And being
All in fantastic unison

The feeling is
When your mind drifts
To the corner of your eyes
And everything
Just
Turns
Off

You rest your soul
And your soul lets you

The feeling is to be alone
With the hope
That one day
Through fiery snow of ice
Raining mud with blood chipped teeth and beer

A stranger will be there to meet you
And shake your hand
With a Cassady like smile

The feeling is
A
Big Tip

The feeling is
Revolution

The feeling is
A muddy bottle
Of spring water

The feeling is
A lost dog
Looking
For his home

The feeling is
Howling Waits
After a couple of
W's and Waters

The feeling is

Just

That

You were always friendly, with those that you liked
but enemies were easily met. I guess they just didn’t
understand you. Its easier to push someone away
rather than try and relate. Convenience is a burden
in disguise. I didn’t know at the time, but you were
the legend of this town.
Hopping the fence near the river, we settle near
the over-grown grass and weeds,  
At that age you don’t drink for
the right reasons, you drink to have fun
but as men, we drink to stay young.
You grew up much too fast, and things
got ugly.
Often times I wondered about you.
So beat, and covered in soot, but
in passing, finding love. Happiness is
only an appearance, I guess. We pretend
to find joy in things to try and forget that
we are alone. He never forgot. I guess that is why
it was so easy for him to walk away.
In my imagination, I saw you passing
a space-bag full of merlot to another
lonely companion in the back of a freight
train; hoping to make it to D.C. before
morning arrived. Old and crusty, but
young in years, almost like
Cassady or Kerouac, but without the gusto.
Too afraid to stay in a single place.

What melancholy nights
We experience in the towns we call home
Kerouac's Holy October is over
And November hangs on the lips and minds
Of the denizens of
Autumn Earth

And when will I become the
Angel-Headed Hipster
I convinced myself
I was prophesied to be
Hipsters who bury themselves in the acoustic blues
Of coffee shops
Or are baptized by words
In bars on Sunday nights

Why would Carl Solomon
Ever leave Rockland
If he's promised never to be alone there?
And they say Neal Cassady died counting railroad tracks
And did he want to die counting railroad tracks?
And will I die counting railroad tracks too?

I so much want to emulate my heroes
I fear it will **** me
And if not a death of physicality
Then a death of mentality
Where I will cease to be
Me

But who wouldn't love of life
Of holy restlessness
Who wants to limit their scope to
A town
A city
A state
And when the only state I feel I can truly call home
Is Confusion
I want it to be for a good enough reason

And if I am to die in a state like this
Let me die counting railroad tracks
As melancholy days
Turn to melancholy nights

So we saunter up to each new prospect,
slow and sly and seductive in our invitations.
"Look at what made me this way.
Wouldn't you like to see?" More
and more until we've disrobed and dismantled ourselves
to the absolute limits of our abilities (our willingness?).
We repeat this display of sacred
shedding until we finally elicit that awe-inducing look
of "concerned understanding" -  we complain
that we are misinterpreted in Cassady fashion
when we make no real efforts to be understood.
"Care most about me." Let me mystify you with myths of me,
perverse nursery rhymes lulling you into a slumber inside my skull
from which you will wake with a start,
demanding release from that citadel you so wished to infiltrate
when it was your hands that needed warming.

VW buses headed to Haight
and Ashbury
In San Francisco to
meet a man
We brought the acid to
expand our consciousness
that's what Tim Leary suggested
And you need to feed your head
like Jefferson Airplane said
Just go ask Alice
Yes we brought the psychedelics
and our bus is painted
in pastel peace signs and
purple Shiva's
We wove flowers in our braid
we ran barefoot
and climbed the trees
They said that the hippies are dead
but The Grateful has yet to
perform their last gig
love love love, man
it's our religion
R.I.P John Lennon
***** Warhol's banana and
Campbell's soup
But we miss Lou Reed and Nico too
Yes the summer of love was in 67'
and Woodstock was a muddy heaven
We watched every episode of Laugh-In
but it wasn't always sunshine and dandelions
like when a runaway overdoses
from ******
It was a wave no one remembers
but to everything there is a season
Freaks with beards at the drive-in
R.I.P Janis Joplin
We were all California Dreamin'
Jack Kerouac the dharma ***
was friends with Neal Cassady
the other-worldly monad
A time of innocence
a time of confidences
And so we are here bumming
cigarettes and joints
with talk about the Manson Family
and Sharon Tate
We are all here so come along
but in the meantime
I'd love to turn you on.

Sitting here looking at all the world going by
With looks of friends and lost lovers limping
How weak our weekly memories can get
When we don't know who we are
Or who we seek

It makes me sick and angry
I curse and clash and yell and Drink.
And drink, and smoke until I can't breathe never no more'er
Will you be my new Neal Cassady?
Will you get his sing song king-orator flow just right?
So I don't have to listen to anyone else

Because I'll spit on their fake plastic empty love and o lord
How I sound like Salinger that reclusive little ****
I spit on this grave and grab-grasp desperately
For you
How I crave

Ya dig?
O yes how your two part name rolls running off
My loose, lucid, lucrative wet tongue

By the campfire the vision in the flame lured Sal within.

Will Cassady remain ?

As the light reaches higher

Sunset to dawn
Chill to warm


Sparks fade for another day.

Well it seems like the fourth time around

And I'm at it again

With the jangle of Dylan

Growling in my head

And all my Cathy's

Now call themselves Kate's

And my little paradise withers

As shadows bloom at the gates

I speak with Kerouac and Cassady

We've all missed our departure

In a hairy spot at the seminary

Surrounded by devout tonsures

I look for the soul with certainty

Not in those bricks placed level

I seek in the grass for my angels

And to my friends for the devil's

They meander somewhere off into a sumit

And fade into the metallic racket

I know the air will thin and degrees plummet

We pray that they've both brought a jacket

I catch a ride with a pal of mine

I think he knows me well

We laugh, we remember, all crazy smiles

But even now I can never tell

I lay me down on an unkempt bed

To sleep just to dream of you

I thought I understood just one

I thought I thought I knew

The poems that are nonsense
Some work like limericks, and eddy
Like jokes on a drink of scotch, and a talk on Neal Cassady
The luncheon, and criminal affairs, the belted ladies with their cummerbunds and burgeoning wishes
The moist coffee, that touches you cupcake lips and kisses the dessert foam
The creme brulee, cider, and apples, you take bites and Bill Evans that plays the ebony and ivory
Stones that rock organs, keyboards, and rock changing streets
The streets that billow of cigarette meditation and ****** addiction spread like rated multiplexes meant for adults
Taxi cabs looking for some darkness in a handful of destiny

In the sibilant
Sound of dark and tainted painted sky
In back, murmurs jousting with themselves in the prying eye
The horror of the malleable man in the unyielding indigo  cued
Indifferent to the blue, of the youthful red earth, that are our foes shed clued
Bled on the midsummer's numinous blue, mouth to the mouth that beds at  the midnight, **** killing people in the hue oft' clueless again
Often, o'er in o'er in my murmur, someone else writes the remembrances in newspapers, purposes in the promise
This other punishment is daft and promising, promising promiscuous scions on starry minutes of miniature minimalistic wary of the remanded the ****** of the ornate jazz saxophone in an acolyte, and I say that many of them said they what's up
Remember, the ****** emanating witless and tesla innovations, isomers of electric molecules chutzpah oboe
Transcendence, slowly slip in the round mines around the aphrodisiac powerful sadness, held in the wild microphones mating in the free utilitarian economy playing in jazz bands in lines
Silence, in the lines of the musical ears, held their hazelnuts and chewed up the muzak, and spilled more music from their ferries
Down and out, lungs bell, the water smelled like beer, and beer poetry kept me at the break of dawn, when the snorers find dilapidated in missionary fixes, and affixing the dawn once again paddling themselves to the shore,
Then they went, time aged shushing us at the break of shining dawn crummy, ******* and rapscallions hushing the crowd
Dour, ****** plastered ceiling, and antediluvian, dormant
Barking Doolittle, amen to the lord's shadowy wretch
The dogs run out, on the charming the neighborhood with its afternoon
Change in the staid small things, we say
We starry loud dynamo, cloudless climes, do you know that we are short-handed on the stars
But, we can count them in the near future, when they die by the Butch Cassady run on the money, and the Will Durant books
Lie over on the oven in the sonny, listen to that roe often
One and one, no brown eyes left
And no blue eyes left us in rueful dark
Its afternoon, Wednesday and yesterday run, in the sun, bleeding brighter than the stars. saving us from the darkness
Pushing us into the light of a thousand roman wunderkind, kindred spirit in the life of the
Larks that sing in the stile on the stolid, so remember us in this jasmine from the World without words, so it's blue
What's up to blue, excuse me while I kiss the sky?
What's up to?
What's for the run?
What's a fine and rib-tickling poem?
I hate these things
What's right and wrong, and this is forfeiting the captain's joke, and jocular nature, as we survived the time we lost Detroit dreaming up Arkansas, dreaming of you in a different wilting hand, it's on my head
And sinful romance lends your hand to the crime
It's punishing, that you have left us without a starry place not talking of the pejorative