Lennon told me Paul was strawberry
George reminded me love trumps lord
Overboard overcome overwrought
Flower child fishtailed dovelike all aboard
Come together
Get yourself together
Soldered together
Like joint dance banners painted to promote teenage ******* to youth
Tied us into our best days ahead of us
Chained to our ***** we swung like gamers
Untied to our integrity
Wrecking wreaking havoc
Ballooned on hubris
Hemorrhaging ego unlocked spewing spite
I respect good works deeds above good intentions
Road paved with broken glass
Don’t respect me when I’m gone
Tell the folks it’s OK to sing along
Let’s spend the night together
Talk all night in the altogether
Rather gather in clover and heather
Happy Ringo’s nest a featherbed
Laying lady laid cunning linguist
‘xplain to me in chiefly straight talk
Who questions whom?

Some hawk-nosed dude in a blue bandana
is laying down his shaggy, reckless legend
for a woman who has surely heard it all before.
She leans back in her chair, and eggs him on
with an easy smile, a word or two, and he is off,
laying down his tale like so much smoking rubber,
and the speed limit does not apply. Even so,
you have to give him credit for the way he floors
the same old stories, makes them sing again,
or maybe something else that he's just recalled
or fishtailed into. That's fine, though, with the blonde
sitting in the chair across the table from him. Notice how she
cradles her cup of tepid coffee and chuckles easily from time to time.

A Story of Scientology and the
Mental Health System Connection

HIGHWAY TO HELL

It took several weeks for me to get my act together to go to LA. The first thing I had to do was find a ride. Fortunately (or, as some would say, *unfortunately) there was someone in the Mission in my hometown who had also been recruited. He was to be stationed in LA permanently. He offered to give me a ride with him. So I packed my bags, and off I went to see the Wizard. But it sure didn't turn out to be no yellow brick road...

First of all, this guy had a bad temper. He seemed to go off at the least little thing. I really didn't like him very much. He didn't mind me, really. He was just like that. A man with long sandy brown hair, a light beard on his gaunt face, which was permanently set in a sour expression. He didn't want to stop for food. So we brought our own vittles and sodas. He didn't even want to stop at the rest area so we could eat. He just wanted to go go go...

Now, I told this guy that I couldn't drive. From the very beginning of the trip he knew this. I was 19 years old and I had only driven once before in my life. And it had been a really horrendous experience. I had been out in the boonies learning to drive with my boyfriend. In a rainstorm. And the roads had gotten flooded... Along with the car. We were stalled for about an hour, with wet brakes, and water everywhere. Well, this guy was  inexperienced, too. And after we were able to start up again, HE PUT ME BEHIND THE WHEEL ONCE MORE! It seemed like it would be okay. I drove for a few miles and everything was hunky-dory. But then I approached a T intersection... there were two cars approaching my vehicle! Not only that but there was a stop sign. I applied the brake. NOTHING! That Pinto WOULD NOT STOP! I had NO TIME TO PUMP THE BRAKES EITHER! So I put on the accelerator full blast! If I had not done that I would have been T-***** by both those cars! So I was going about 35 miles per hour across the road through a barb wire fence! And into the weeds! I then fishtailed the car until it stopped. There were two Cowpoke's standing outside of the grocery store that was at the T intersection. Doubled over with hilarity! They saw me fishtailing and shouted out, "YEEE HAAAW!" Not a stellar experience. Therefore I was a nervous driver...

So halfway through this road trip to LA this dude got tired. He wanted me to drive. I told him I couldn't drive, and that I had told them from the very outset that I could not. He got furious! "I'm not stopping at a rest stop and sleeping!" He insisted that I drive. "It's a straightforward highway! No rocket science!" So, much to my chagrin, I got behind the wheel.

I already knew the basics. But there were a lot of things I didn't know, as I was to discover. It was actually fun! I played the radio real low so he could sleep. Lynyrd Skynyrd. The Eagles. Santana. The miles rolled on. Then I looked at the gas gauge...

we were nearly on EMPTY!

Well, I tried to wake this guy up. He seemed to be like a dead man. Except that he snored like a steam shovel! He would not respond to any of my shouts and prodding. Then... A miracle! A gas station, by God! And on my side of the road, TOO!

I went to pull off. After all, how hard could that be? I slow the car down to take it down the off-ramp. But the car, of course, accelerated on its own due to gravity...
Nervous as I could be, I hit the accelerator instead of the brake... we went through that gas station doing 40 miles an hour!!! Nearly hitting a gas pump and a PAPER BOY on his BICYCLE!!! I've never heard such navy blue language coming from a youngster in my life!

THAT woke the dude up. He put his foot on mine and slammed on the brakes... bringing all our LUGGAGE in the BACK SEAT UP to HIT US BOTH UPSIDE THE HEAD!!

I've never seen a man as enraged as that guy was. He was puce with trembling FURY!! needless to say, I didn't drive again. And he was a LEADFOOT Bigfoot, yelling at me at every opportunity, for the rest of the trip to Los Angeles.

that when death approaches your life flashes
it flickers  and if you live it triggers something
more, an urge ,
the crash avoided -the ditch thru which  you around the car the
telephone pole fishtailed just right
and came out spitting earth mud dirt everywhere
but stumbled to the corner
where you stopped , took it all in,
and saw the inevitable collision felt
and heard the smash
of metal and breaking glass
like it happened
but you somehow avoided
and it soaks in to you
makes you feel
somehow gifted or warned
a call to be aware
so you cry your way home in shock
in awe you saw the car right there
no way you could swerve at just the right time and miss
then the ditch you slid into sideways
mud flying everywhere
saw the telephone pole right there
and you somehow missed it too
saw in those instances snapshots
stop action the people in the car
faces that pulled out in front of you
their horror reactions
felt the bang before it happened
crashing metal and glass crumbling
then when that did not happen , somehow
the mud spattering as you fishtailed
into a ditch headlong to a pole standing forever there
and it was not that poles time.
I shivered and cried after , I don't know why.
But I remember during the sliding the tires squealing thinking
I want to hear her say I love you
one time more.
And make a difference
somehow
someway.

a shore is pushed back--

into its raring cutoff.

its lungy dunes, flounder

on their relative sides.

castle walls keeled even.

fishtailed, as glassy calms--

sparkling with the tidal floods

they down.

--do ripples betray oceanic age?

no.

a flower girl that suddenly tears

out a beach umbrella--does.

she whirls it till a beatdown desert,

throws off its color scheme.

there, there are people--which notice:

sand-sea-sky...become divorcees of

Blue.