There's a reason there's a path outside your door
that leads to a road
that leads to an interstate,
that leads to an airport.

And there's a reason that planes fly from that airport
to one near here.

Same reason that airport has a road
that leads to a highway
a highway that they are repairing as we speak
that leads to my town
to a path that leads to my door

And its not just coincidence.

Any more than its coincidence that you are reading this.

I am freaking out on the interstate
Freaked out I am, out of freaks, (I’m the freak)
and I’ve been freaked out on the interstate for 15 minutes now,
sitting in my car with my hands on my knees and
I don’t know how to make it stop
and I am freaking out on the interstate, on I-95, East to be specific and the cars keep whizzing by
and I'm dizzy with adrenaline, I'm hot-wired now  
and my hands are on my thighs and I’m sweating now, I'd swear but I can't make out the words, any words and I swear I'm telling the truth
and I pulled over the car off the highway onto the shoulder, my shoulders are tight in their sockets, tensing, preparing my body for battle
because I’m freaking out on the interstate
and I’m a freak!
on the interstate
in this state
of Massachusetts,
I am in no state not to freak out and
it’s sorta funny because
I can’t breathe and I don’t know what to do next
And I see the highway trees and they are blurs of green, there are no more birds here, only me and the sky and one sheet of metal, one frame of glass keeping me from certain, unflinching death, that ostentatious word.
That stupid, indelible word that will not escape my temples,
but I'm a freak and
I can’t
and I won’t
and I don’t stop
freaking out on the interstate.

Man life know just set eyes way like young world soul day hunger space mouth earth thoughts ignorance blind things mind knew final moment human creation kind creatures souls high forgotten dream love spoke self existence face holy deep bound think home void say surrender ear forever called held ephemeral red state end shall heed hope edge living waking fall sea wake garden need February thought past wanderer got men page colored tepid terrible **** proudly untitled features point painted faceless box forgot render wild spring splendor  handfuls looking half brain lost torn ancestral  unseen vision inner summer honor mister owned banner save today fear groans wasn't smoke  street fable strange year contrast black years  able pain body spoken word known motion  palpitate reeling nature culture disclaimers  cancer beg attentive frames ****** base profound double remember wholly finger death token  cries continue folk oh fishing form broken true  divides spread ah twas away breathe wait warning hallowed wish closer lens turn eye live  constant current author hung theory dangle  bramble chemical new force changes adderall  anymore giving beneath possess pardon commentaries eternity internal walk reason  long change does idea glimpse consciousness  wandering simply wonder physical dreams war  sleep told rest benign prior begging truth little  2012 born tale crow bowels allegory animal rule  exasperate making horse curse hands ones read  rearrange capture doing command fail awake  aperture seedlings shift steely sir nap spead ****** demons slits clever telling loud spits la-la-di-dah killing slip game reflected nameless ask  lovers rabid bear salivate plunder shameless  famously savior mint rides menthol bully fate traded melodies play misunderstand mammals gentle witless fine utterly savage silt tongue-less  dirt dilutes pure non-sensory taste briefly ravage dismember it''ll shedding ruined curtain  knots offers plot fulfills munificent two-act  relegates boxz bug altruistic wintergreen tossing  callously guise grovels one's singers treachery ashes mid-life mutter fashion parading  ambiguity separatist liars staple steeping neath  guidelines scoffing stitch moans civil wrote  Fictitious undoing fables table effigies serve  sonnets staged remark psalm swoll praise harken  beggar verse bread lines heavily electricity detection snow sack-happy preaching credit  spotted wicked best gravity gun campaign owe  barge choir revelry celebratory satiated sinking  headline pack hound persistently propaganda  gentlemen excluding diminished ******* run idles  occupied levies wolfishly honestly misinformation cuba vehemently dumb grace spectator erasing  toned sage crowded secrets inter-connectivity  loaned prayer hymns grave mistaken magnified  vandals selective jump leak escapes says minister  buckle mass honesty shut tar children's hats  monument doping long-lived electrical ladle  exaggerated cartoons address seconds cool cradle bleak yang's mind-framed hypnotic  walker caps folly treble claim streaks mixtures  swelled interstate elapse teasing spoon mobile  succulent witchcraft borderline fatal 99 temple stacks sups plastics creeps neurotic ills tossed  meek sipping old crack interlock wax alleyway  coughing blown freak clock birthdays societies  slow flashing viscous candy argument toothless  pills cerebral rapt wall bisect lives wheezing  photo kid starter foiled pair saturated self-castrating pre-packed naked uncertainly pill  used came chaos coated reprisal fells wrack  irreverent mirth sickly disinherited proudest  collate wheeze appearance palette disharmony  discontented bastardized emotive bio inhale diction beat spoiled reclamation loudest tempo  totally disembodied matte imperfect shells flat  struck sounding imparts flak origin severance remarked bone walls snared leaflets mocking  hot scripting adjective noun agape seemingly  resistant gawk calamity passage paintings wind  trashcans signings sits cheap makers poetry persist scrap slipping individual talk wonders  leaving questions fold actor fancy parchment  fates engenders flown jaws stripped longer music  sacrifice fakers book boldly frown sigh atop patient hang trade occupation blows spectacular  whispers worthy backward waving certainty danced suppose needn't ‘drawkcab’ second-guessing  boys forget marched motto heads tightly lies two-tone earthbound harp twice turns goodnight  lying ***** internally indiscriminate nickname  drunk convictions myth steep  in-consumption  fitting artist **** universal sick expressions bad  du spell melody big siphon proud learn sprawls song spastic something temperaments utter check  fissures stomp totality blend definitely thrall sing rug voice shade pestilence ties commiserate round devil steady brains emotional certain gate  suckling gates dearth decay weight bounce pound  carrier pangs glass startle contest earthen web  tug pressed air patience flush amassed guest gone apprehension staring empathize captain believe fading in-perceivable deathbed guarder makes surrounds scatter drooling ebb blink cob tome  venom near door lair derision draws host stairs scent parts curiosities spider webbing surprise wares tips stepping ascetics starkness realize picture surroundings dictations grand pillars  deaf limited comparisons greet visual residents  personal settings dismiss alien law stability common earthly shiftless places prelude  understanding mosaic keen trifling embodiments  geared inception whisper visible jowls kiss murky  puddle rank dawn dichotomy single faithful fraying pays tailor veil climb mores pence whim  breath wellspring samara god stony pear  shadows fruiting forebodes moonlit looming  shown passed bog gold wracked faint tongues  noble preachers mirror shifting layered depth  threads jungle narcissus bemused seamstress self-worshiping architect's wore slumber anomalous  opened barren seam lip caustic scene coupled brick gardener's clenches -with forms idle breed  embodied lore starving empathy design illusion  tree coat fabricate lucid mason scatter-all  narrative seeking imbued 16th shivering chemicals 17th 15thrisk improperly dare  deliberate plan purge try brought chapter speed  aide utmost spirit leading intervention felt  recall recent advent sincerity times diary  lackluster piously lasting happy holding hear  stem tasteless whimpers wet spine monstrosity  dripping causes position quite softly claws pallet  answer digging tearing beast satiating circle breaks skips redwoods beckoning rotted hushed  gray lapsing monoliths deities creborus  imbuement hand stroll paradigm rendered chorus shy whispering forest residual tension  surrenders tolerance lull anew sentenced  bearing tide birds dirge divergent rim joined  cogs wood hesitant mist emergent towering offer  awareness confinement inverted faultier stowed  plane sanctified blanketing trusting memory fossil flash twists laden self-indulgent fleeting invitation agony grip shore impetus lingering  crows promise gift union swallowing endless floor supposed ecstasy sensory intent  psychotropic cradling placement interned  jagged connectivity exchange congenial begun  summons singular spiral assumes ambient reciprocates re-entry fruition reached aggregate lifetime limbs birthed instinct  frightening tarry proper entire light  boundaries innocence pursuit ago discover left  youth's unknowing sacred time place meager  simple fact cast ceaseless wide-eyed literal  apparent coincidence create boldness morphed  crooked kempt mere stumble buried shutter fairy  pivotal definitive months worth shear ambition sound required journeyed self-reflections title  facets vague restless intimation gut wanderer's  leap motivate path account boy soon bears faith  question tripped reasons uproot awaited confronted days step heal provocations wisps crushing transcend chronicles instance  directness raw drove occurrence objective-less  real enters slightest confident nondescript  typify  foreshortened interment paradox bitter heart  devoid jeopardy angry sensation confidential guilty arrogance mercy compliance reprieve  vincent deadening factual sign emotion awe  inhibition shackled butterflies absence actual sciences acknowledgement violent stagnant  spiritual American doors roots lack matted fore  gestures society cause streams intensity hair impossible discord lonely hearts resounding  jest  what's flavored pains closed toxic contented  happenstance scientific knowledge yeah  wizardry shaking stifled withdrawn bloom  jitter dreads settle asocial hulton make  predisposed figurative reflections demeanors  wondered affect hulton's projected sense  morning industry arrays ghosts feeling  certainly endomorphic where's partially wrath  passer mornings jovial unease advertized asking  trash onward wished tempers media mentality connect pasts sharp-toothed scramble great colours trial test salvation continually lent  degree secretly subjection social waned  disconnected colors grimly intellectual civilization cash trading baffling particular  digest myths monumental ending seasons winter  repetition introducing agent everlasting  shoulders delivered honestly-- possession funny  continence history unsightly function suffering propulsion profession divulge familiar tugs era  importance capability perpetuation spite inventory words entirety leveling fray insight  date record continues writer getting evermore fellow tongue possessions identical proof accuracy education similar sack admittance  favor unravel conveyance guilt gives beginnings  predicting audacity definition bobby heady eaters frameless learned release stone grandeur sang  speak molds sleeps split built seats people folded  sheer pour evoked playhouse liquid boring  tellers frayed stark walked reality pleas doth  preformed shows beak pride squawks opinions  greatest bold stunning sightings he'd loudly slain  sunk watch legend precipice theater deeper compound commentator civility justly silly sin  reverent seen prophetic moral confounds notion  lacking explain attempt prolific viral estrange proclivity scorn hide blur pious strung eden's  horror cut skin arch cruel twig mother vile  pass lend woods peach shrunken trail man's canopy worn 434 eat warm limb familiar father delete.

You are what your reading lady. Now would you hold this gun?

It was 1972 and my dad was sick.  Well maybe not sick in the usual sense of the word, but his hip was.  He was in Boston, it was mid-winter, and he was an orthopedic patient in the Robert Bent Brigham Hospital.

He had been selected as an early recipient of what was called back then a ‘partial hip replacement.’  It was called partial, because they only replaced the arthritic hip ball, leaving the original (and degenerative) socket in place.  Needless to say these procedures didn’t work long term, but for those unable to walk and in pain, they were all that was available at the time.

I was in State College Pennsylvania when the call came in from my mother, telling me my dad was in the hospital. He was in so much pain they had to rush him to Boston by ambulance and schedule surgery just two days from now. I was living in the small rural town of Houserville Pa. about five miles West of State College and there was at least eight inches of fresh snow on the ground outside. It was 439 miles from State College to Boston. Based on my mothers phone call, if I wanted to see my Dad before his surgery, I had less than a full day to get there.

It was now 5:30 p.m. on Monday night and my father’s operation was scheduled for first thing (7:00 a.m.) Wednesday morning.  That meant that if I wanted to see him before he went to the O.R., I really needed to get there sometime before visiting hours were over Tuesday night.  My mother had said they were going to take him to pre-op at 6:00 a.m. Wednesday morning, and we wouldn’t have a chance to see him before he went down.

My only mode of transportation sat covered outside in the snow on my small front porch.  It was a six-month old 1971 750 Honda Motorcycle that I had bought new the previous September.  Because of the snowy winter conditions in the Nittany Mountains, I hadn’t ridden it since late November.  I hadn’t even tried to start it since the day before Christmas Eve when I moved it off the stone driveway and rode it up under our semi-enclosed front porch.

My roommate Steve and I lived in a converted garage that was owned by a Penn State University professor and his wife.  They lived in the big house next door and had built this garage when they were graduate students over twenty years ago. They had lived upstairs where our bedrooms now were, while storing their old 1947 Studebaker Sedan in the garage below.  It wasn’t until 1963 that they built the big house and moved out of the garage before putting it up for rent.

The ‘garage’ had no insulation, leaked like a sieve, and was heated with a cast iron stove that we kept running with anything we could find to throw in it.  We had run out of our winter ‘allotment’ of coal last week, and neither of us could afford to buy more.  We had spent the last two days scavenging down by the creek and bringing back old dead (and wet) wood to try and keep from freezing, and to keep the pipes inside from freezing too.

After hanging up the phone, I explained to Steve what my mother had just told me. He said: You need to get to Boston, and you need to leave now.  Steve had a 1965 Dodge Dart with a slant six motor that was sitting outside on the left side of the stone drive.  He said “you’re welcome to take it, but I think the alternator is shot.  Even if we get it jump-started, I don’t think it will make it more than ten or fifteen miles.”

It was then that we weighed my other options.  I could hitchhike, but with the distance and weather, it was very ‘iffy’ that I would get there on time.  I could take the Greyhound (Bus), but the next one didn’t leave until 3:00 tomorrow afternoon.  It wouldn’t arrive in Boston until 11:20 at night.  Too late to see my dad!

We both stared for a long time at the Motorcycle. It looked so peaceful sitting there under its grey and black cover.  Without saying a word to each other we grabbed both ends of the cover and lifted it off the bike.  I then walked down the drive to the road to check the surface for ice and snow.  It had snow on both sides but had been recently plowed. There was a small **** of snow still down the middle, but the surface to both sides looked clear and almost snow free.

      I Knew That Almost Was Never Quite Good Enough

I walked back inside the house and saw Steve sitting there with an empty ‘Maxwell House Tin’ in his hands. This is where Steve kept his cash hidden, and he took out what was in there and handed it all to me. “ You can pay me back next week when you get paid by Paul Bunyan.”  Paul Bunyan was the Pizza Shop on ****** Avenue that I delivered for at night, and I was due to be paid again in just four more days. I thanked Steve and walked up the ten old wooden and rickety stairs to our bedrooms.  

The walls were still finished in rough plywood sheathing that had never been painted or otherwise finished.  I packed the one leather bag that my Mother had given me for Christmas last year, put on my Sears long underwear, threw in my Dopp Kit and headed back downstairs. I also said a silent prayer for having friends … really good friends.

                 When I Got Downstairs, Steve Was Gone

Sensing I might need a ‘moment’ to finally decide, Steve had
started to walk down to highway # 64 and then hitchhike into town.  He was the photo-editor of the Penn State Yearbook, and Monday nights were when they had their meetings to get the book out.  The staff had only ninety more days to finish what looked to me to be an almost ‘impossible’ task.

As tough as his project was, tonight I was facing a likely impossible assignment of my own. Interstate #80 had just opened, and it offered an alternative to the old local road, Rt # 322.  The entrance to Rt. # 80 was ten miles away in Bellefonte Pennsylvania, and I knew those first ten miles could possibly be the worst of the trip.  I called my sister at home, and she said the weather forecast had said snow in the mountains (where I was), and then cold temperatures throughout the rest of the Northeast corridor.  Cold temperatures would mean a high of no more than 38 degrees all through the Pocono’s and across the Delaware Water Gap into New Jersey. Then low forty-degree temperatures the rest of the way.

I put two pairs of Levi’s Jeans on over my long-johns. I then put on my Frye boots with three pairs of socks, pulled my warmest fisherman’s knit wool sweater over my head and finished with my vintage World War Two leather bomber jacket to brace against the cold.  I had an early version of a full coverage helmet, a Bell Star, to protect my head and ears.  Without that helmet to keep out the cold, I knew I wouldn’t have had any chance of making the seven and a half hour ride.  To finish, I had a lightly tanned pair of deerskin leather gloves with gauntlets that went half way up my forearms. Normally this would have been ‘overkill’ for a ride to school or into town,

                                   But Not Tonight

I strapped my leather bag on the chrome luggage rack on the rear, threw my leg over the seat, and put the key into the ignition.  This was the first ‘electric start’ motorcycle I had ever owned, and I said a quick prayer to St Christopher that it would start. As I turned the key I couldn’t help but think about my father lying there in that hospital bed over four hundred miles away.  As I turned the key to the right, I heard the bike crank over four times and then fire to life as if I had just ridden it the day before.  As much as I wanted to be with my dad, I would be less than truthful if I didn’t confess that somewhere deep inside me, I was secretly hoping that the bike wouldn’t start.

I was an experienced motorcyclist and now 23 years old. I had ridden since I was sixteen and knew that there were a few ‘inviolable’ rules that all riders shared.  Rule number one was never ride after drinking.  Rule number two was never ride on a night like tonight — a night when visibility was awful and the road surface in many places might be worse. I again thought of my father as I backed the bike off the porch, turned it around to face the side street we lived on, dropped it into first gear, and left.  I could hear Jethro Tull’s ‘Aqualung’ playing from the house across the street.  It was rented to students too, and the window over the kitchen was open wide — even on a night like this.

                  Oh, Those Carefree Days Of College Bliss

As I traveled down the mile long side street that we lived on, I saw the sign for state road #64 on my right.  It was less than 100 feet away and just visible in the cloudy mountain air.  I was now praying not for things to get better, but please God, don’t let them get any worse.  As I made the left turn onto #64 I saw the sign ‘Interstate 80 – Ten Miles,’ and by now I was in third gear and going about twenty five miles an hour.  In the conditions I was riding in on this Monday night, it felt like at least double that.

I had only ever been East on Rt #80 once before, always preferring the scenery and twisty curves of Rt #322.  Tonight, challenging roads and distracting scenery were the last thing that I wanted.  I was hoping for only one thing, and that was that PennDot, (The Pennsylvania Department Of Transportation), had done their job plowing the Interstate and that the 150 mile stretch of road from Bellefonte to the Delaware Water Gap was open and clear.  

As I approached the entrance ramp to Rt #80 East in Bellefonte, it was so far; so good.  If God does protect both drunks and fools, I was willing to be considered worse than both tonight, if he would get me safely to Boston without a crash.

The first twenty miles east on Interstate #80 were like a blur wrapped inside a time warp.  It was the worst combination
of deteriorating road conditions, glare from oncoming headlights, and spray and salt that was being kicked up from the vehicles in front of me.  Then it got worse — It started to snow again!

                                             More Snow!

What else could happen now I wondered to myself as I passed the exit for Milton on Rt #80.  It had been two hours since leaving the State College area, and at this pace I wouldn’t get to Boston until five or six in the morning. I was tucked in behind a large ‘Jones Motor Freight Peterbilt,’ and we were making steady but slow progress at about thirty miles per hour.  I stayed just far enough behind the truck so that the spray from his back tires wouldn’t hit me straight on.  It did however keep the road directly in front of me covered with a fresh and newly deposited sheet of snow, compliments of his eight rear wheels which were throwing snow in every direction, but mostly straight back at me.

I didn’t have to use the brakes in this situation, which was a real plus as far as stability and traction were concerned.  We made it almost to the Berwick exit when I noticed something strange.  Motorists coming from the other direction were rolling their windows down and shouting something at the drivers going my way.  With my helmet on, and the noise from the truck in front of me drowning everything else out, I couldn’t make out what they were trying to say.  I could tell they were serious though, by the way they leaned out their windows and shouted up at the driver in the truck I was following.

Then I saw it.  Up ahead in the distance it looked like a parade was happening in the middle of the highway. There were multi-colored flashing lights everywhere.  Traffic started to slow down until it was at a crawl, and then finally stopped.  A state police car came up the apron going the wrong way on our side and told everyone in our long line that a semi-truck had ‘jack-knifed’, and flipped over on its side, and it was now totally blocking the East bound lanes.  

The exit for Berwick was only two hundred yards ahead, and if you got over onto the apron you could make it off the highway.  Off the highway to what I wondered, but I knew I couldn’t sit out here in the cold and snow with my engine idling. It would eventually overheat (being air-cooled) even at these low temperatures which could cause mechanical problems that I’d never get fixed in time to see my dad.

I pulled over onto the apron and rode slowly up the high ramp to the right, and followed the sign at the top to Berwick.  The access road off the ramp was much worse than the highway had been, and I slipped and slid all the way into town.  I took one last look back at the menagerie of lights from the medivac ambulances and tow trucks that were now all over the scene below.  The lights were all red and blue and gold, and in a strange twisted and beautiful way, it reminded me of the ride to church for midnight mass on Christmas Eve.

                  Christmas Eve With My Mom And My Dad

In Berwick, the only thing I saw that was open was the Bulldog Lounge.  It was on the same side of the street that I was on and had a big VFW sign hanging under its front window.  I could see warm lights glowing inside and music was drifting through the brick façade and out onto the sidewalk. I stopped in front of the rural Pennsylvania tavern and parked the bike on its kickstand, unhooked my leather bag from the luggage carrier and walked in the front door.

Once inside, there was a bar directly ahead of me with a tall, sandy haired woman serving drinks.  “What can I get you,” she said as I approached the bar, but she couldn’t understand my answer.  My mouth and face were so frozen from the cold and the wind that my speech was slurred, and I’m sure it seemed like I was already drunk when I hadn’t even had a drink.  She asked again, and I was able to get the word ‘coffee’ out so she could understand it. She turned around behind her to where the remnants from what was served earlier that day were still overcooking in the ***. She put the cup in front of me, and I took it with both hands and held it close against my face.

After ten minutes of thawing out I finally took my first swallow.  It  tasted even worse than it looked, but I was glad to get it, and I then asked the bar lady where the restrooms were.  “Down that corridor to the right” she said, and I asked her if she would watch my bag until I got back.  Without saying a word, she just nodded her head. As I got to the end of the corridor, I noticed a big man in a blue coat with epaulets standing outside the men’s room door.  He had a menacing no-nonsense look on his face, and didn’t smile or nod as I walked by.  His large coat was open and as I looked at him again, I saw it – he was wearing a gun.
            
                                   He Was Wearing A Gun

As I went into the men’s room, I noticed it was dark, but there was a lot of noise and commotion coming from the far end.  I looked for the light switch and when I found it, I couldn’t believe what I saw next.  Someone was stuck in the window at the far end of the men’s room, with the lower half of their body sticking out on my side and the upper half dangling outside in the cold and the dark.  It looked like a man from where I stood, and he was making large struggling sounds as he either tried to push his way out or pull his way back in.  I wasn’t sure at this point which way he was trying to go. Something else was also strange, he had something tied or wrapped around the bottom of his legs.

It was at this point that I opened up the men’s room door again and yelled outside for help.  In an instant, the big man with the blue coat and gun ran almost right over me to the window and grabbed the mans two legs, and in one strong movement pulled him back in the window and halfway across the floor.  It was then that I could see that the man’s legs were shackled, and handcuffs were holding his arms tightly together in front of his body.  He had apparently asked to use the facility and then tried to escape once inside and alone.

The large guard said “Jimmy, I warned you about trying something like this.  I have half a mind now to make you hold it all the way back to New Hampshire.” He stood the young man up and went over and closed the window. He locked it with the hasp.  He then let the man use the toilet in the one stall, but stood right there with him until he was done.  By this time I was back inside and finishing my coffee.  The guard came in, seated his prisoner at a table by the wall, and then walked over and sat down next to me at the bar.

“You really saved me a lot of trouble tonight, son” he said, “If he had gotten out that window, I doubt I’d have found him in the dark and the snow.  I’d have been here all night, and that’s ‘if’ I caught him again.  My *** would have been in a sling back at headquarters and I owe you a debt of thanks.”  You don’t owe me anything I said, I was just trying to help, and honestly didn’t know he was a prisoner when I first saw him suspended in the window. “Well just the same, you did me a big favor, and I’d like to try and return it if I could.”

He then asked me if I lived in Berwick, and I told him no, that I was traveling to Boston to see my father in the hospital and had to get off the highway on my motorcycle because of the wreck on Interstate #80.  “You’re on a what,” he asked me!  “A motorcycle” I said again, as his eyes got even wider than the epaulets on his shoulders.  “You’re either crazy or desperate, but I guess it’s none of my business.  How are you planning on getting to Boston tonight in all this snow?”  When I told him I wasn’t sure, he told me to wait at the bar.  He went to the pay phone and made a short phone call and was back in less than three minutes.  The prisoner sat at the table by the wall and just watched.

The large man came back over to the bar and said “my names Bob and I work for the U.S. Marshals Office.  I’m escorting this fugitive back to New Hampshire where he stole a car and was picked up in West Virginia at a large truck stop on Interstate #79.  Something about going to see his father whom he had never met who was dying on some Indian reservation in Oklahoma.  He’d have made it too, except he parked next to an unmarked state trooper who was having coffee, thought he looked suspicious, and then ran his plates.”

“I’m driving that big flatbed truck outside and transporting both him and the car he stole back to New Hampshire for processing and trial.  I’ve got enough room behind the car to put your bike on the trailer too.  If you’d like, I can get you as far as the Mass. Pike, and then you’ll only be about ninety minutes from Boston and should be there for breakfast. If you don’t mind ridin with ‘ole Jimmy’ here, I can get you most of the way to where you’re going. I don’t think you’ll make it all the way on that two-wheeler alone out on that highway tonight.

The Good Lord takes many forms and usually arrives when least expected.  Tonight he looked just like a U.S. Marshal, and he was even helping me push my bike up the ramp and onto the back of his flatbed.  He then even had the right straps to help me winch it down so it wouldn’t move as we then headed North through the blinding snow in the dark.  Bob knew a back way around the accident, and after a short detour on Pa. Routes #11 and #93, we were back on the Interstate and New England bound.

The three of us, Bob, Jimmy and I, spent the first hour of the ride in almost total silence.  Bob needed to stop for gas in Stroudsburg and asked me if I would accompany Jimmy to the men’s room inside.  His hands and feet were still ‘shackled,’ and I can still see the looks on the faces of the restaurant’s patrons as we walked past the register to the rest rooms off to the left.  Jimmy still never spoke a word, and we were back outside in less than five minutes.

Once back in the truck Bob said “Jesus, it’s cold out here tonight. You warm enough kid,” as he directed his comment to Jimmy.  I still had on my heavy leather bomber jacket, but Jimmy was wearing a light ‘Members Only’ cotton jacket that looked like it had seen much better days.  Jimmy didn’t respond.  I said: “Are you warm enough kid,” and Bob nudged Jimmy slightly with his right elbow.  Jimmy looked back at Bob and said, ‘Yeah, I’m fine.”

Then Bob started to speak again.  “You know it’s a **** shame you got yourself into this mess.  In looking at your record, it’s clean, and this is your first offense.  What in God’s name possessed you to steal a car and try to make it all the way to Oklahoma in weather like this?”  Jimmy looked down at the floor for the longest time and then raised his head, looked at me first, and then over at Bob …

“My Mom got a letter last week saying that the man who is supposed to be my father was in the Choctaw Nation Indian Hospital in Talihina Oklahoma.  They also told her that he was dying of lung cancer and they didn’t expect him to last long.  His only wish before he died was to see the son that he abandoned right before he was shipped off to Seoul during the Korean War. I tried to borrow my uncle’s car, but he needed it for work.  We have neighbors down the street who have a car that just sits. They have a trailer in Florida for the winter, and I planned to have it back before anyone missed it.  The problem was that their son came over to check on the place, saw the car was missing, and reported it to the cops. I never meant to keep it, I just wanted to get down and back before anyone noticed.”

“Dumb, Dumb, Dumb, Bob said!  Don’t you know they make buses for that.”  Jimmy says he never thought that far, and given the choice again that’s what he’d do.  Bob took one more long look at Jimmy and just slowly shook his head.  Then he said to both of us, “how old are you boys?”  I said 23, as Jimmy nodded his head acknowledging that he was the same age.  Bob then said, “I got bookends here, both goin in different directions,”

Jimmy then went on to say, “My mom my little sister and I live in a public housing project in Laconia.  I never knew my dad, but my grandma, when she was alive, said that he was a pretty good guy.  My mother would never talk about why he left, and I felt like this was my last chance to not only meet him but to find all that out before he passed.”  I glanced over at Bob and it looked like his eyes were welling up behind the thick glasses he wore.  Jimmy then said: “If I got to rethink this thing, I would have stayed in New Hampshire.  It just ‘seemed’ like the right thing to do at the time.

We rode for the next hour in silence.  Bob already knew my story, and I guess he didn’t think sharing it with Jimmy would make him feel any better.  The story of an upper middle class college kid on the way to see his dad in Boston would probably only serve to make what he was feeling now even worse.  The sign up ahead said ‘Hartford, 23 miles’. Bob said, “Kurt, this is where we drop you off.  If you cut northeast on Rt # 84, it will take you to the Mass.Pike.  From where you pick up the pike, you should then be no more than an hour or so from downtown Boston.

During those last 23 miles Bob spoke to Jimmy again.  I think he wanted me to hear it too. “Jimmy,” Bob said, “I’m gonna try and help you outta this mess.  I believe you’re basically a good kid and deserve a second chance.  Somebody helped me once a long time ago and it made all the difference in my life.”  Bob looked over at me and said. “Kurt, whatta you think?”  I said I agreed, and that I was sure that if given another chance, Jimmy would never do anything like this again.  Jimmy said nothing, as his head was again pointed down toward the floor.

“I’ll testify for you at your hearing,” Bob said, “and although I don’t know who the judge will be, in most cases they listen when a federal marshal speaks up on behalf of the suspect.  It doesn’t happen real often, and that’s why they listen when it does.

    More Than Geographical Borders Had Now Been Crossed,
             Human Borders Were Being Expanded Too!

We arrived in Hartford and Bob pulled the truck over. He slid down the ramp and attached it to the back of the flat wooden bed. Jimmy even tried to help as we backed the Honda down the ramp. They both stood there as I turned the key and the bike fired up on the first try.  Bob then said, “You got enough money to make it the rest of the way, kid,” I said that I did, and as I stuck out my hand to thank him he was already on his way back to the truck with his arm around Jimmy’s shoulder.

The ride up #84 and then #90 East into Boston was cold but at least it was dry.  No snow had made it this far North.  My father’s operation would be successful, and I had been able to spend most of the night before the surgery with him in his hospital room.  He couldn’t believe that I had come so far, and through so much, just to be with him at that time. I told him about meeting Jimmy and Bob, and he said: “Son, that boys gonna do just fine.  Getting caught, and then being transferred by Bob, is the best thing that ever happened to him.”  

“I had something like that happen to me in Nebraska back in 1940, and without help my life may have taken an entirely different turn.  My options were, either go away for awhile, or join the United States Marine Corps — Thank God for the ‘Corps.”  My dad had run away from home during the depression at 13 and was headed down a very uncertain path until given that choice by someone who cared so very long ago.

“It only takes one person to make all the difference,” my dad said, and I’m so happy and grateful that you’re here with me tonight.

As they wheeled my dad into surgery the next morning, I couldn’t help but think about Jimmy, the kid who was my age and never got to see his dad before it was too late.

On that fated night, two young men ‘seemingly’ going in opposite directions had met in the driving snow. One was looking for a father he had only heard about but never knew.  The other trying to get to a father he knew so well and didn’t think he could live without.

          

      Jimmy Was Adopted That Night Through The Purity
                        Of His Misguided Intention …
                       As So Few Times In Life We Are!

i’m always all too conscious
of moments hanging in the air
like watching helium balloons slowly
fall down the wall to cover the ground,
i keep stepping on them till they pop

like looking out the window once the suns starts to set
and you can’t see the light fading, but then you
blink and you’re sitting in a dark room

sitting next to you
with eyes closed and breath held
in a moment
that doesn’t feel real

like i’m looking down at the earth
while standing on the moon

and i know i’ll miss it once it’s gone,
but i can’t seem to figure out
how to freeze the hours that feel like seconds
passing by and

then it’s time
to leave and i held your hand
while you drove me home,
thinking about how real everything felt
with the lights blurring past on the interstate,
how i wanted the road to go on forever,
watching you rap stupid songs and
talk about how to feel grown up
without really growing up
and then suddenly

it was gone,
like it was never there

and i sat on my bed
wishing i could walk back into
the hands on the clock and
your hands on my face, but it
disappeared, floated up to the ceiling
carrying my heart with it

and all i have now are
memories that feel like dreams

to play back in my head
until time fades back into you.

I met him on the Amtrak line to Central Jersey. His name was Walker, and his surname Norris. I thought there was a certain charm to that. He was a Texas man, and he fell right into my image of what a Texas man should look like. Walker was tall, about 6’4”, with wide shoulders and blue eyes. He had semi-long hair, tied into a weak ponytail that hung down from the wide brim hat he wore on his head. As for the hat, you could tell it had seen better days, and the brim was starting to droop slightly from excessive wear. Walker had on a childish smile that he seemed to wear perpetually, as if he were entirely unmoved by the negative experiences of his own life. I have often thought back to this smile, and wondered if I would trade places with him, knowing that I could be so unaffected by my suffering. I always end up choosing despair, though, because I am a writer, and so despair to me is but a reservoir of creativity. Still, there is a certain romance to the way Walker braved the world’s slings and arrows, almost oblivious to the cruel intentions with which they were sent at him.
“I never think people are out to get me.” I remember him saying, in the thick, rich, southern drawl with which he spoke, “Some people just get confused sometimes. Ma’ momma always used to tell me, ‘There ain’t nothing wrong with trustin’ everyone, but soon as you don’t trust someone trustworthy, then you’ve got another problem on your hands.’”—He was full of little gems like that.
As it turns out, Walker had traveled all the way from his hometown in Texas, in pursuit of his runaway girlfriend, who in a fit of frenzy, had run off with his car…and his heart. The town that he lived in was a small rinky-**** miner’s village that had been abandoned for years and had recently begun to repopulate. It had no train station and no bus stop, and so when Walker’s girlfriend decided to leave with his car, he was left struggling for transportation. This did not phase Walker however, who set out to look for his runaway lover in the only place he thought she might go to—her mother’s house.
So Walker started walking, and with only a few prized possessions, he set out for the East Coast, where he knew his girlfriend’s family lived. On his back, Walker carried a canvas bag with a few clothes, some soap, water and his knife in it. In his pocket, he carried $300, or everything he had that Lisa (his girlfriend) hadn’t stolen. The first leg of Walker’s odyssey he described as “the easy part.” He set out on U.S. 87, the highway closest to his village, and started walking, looking for a ride. He walked about 40 or 50 miles south, without crossing a single car, and stopping only once to get some water. It was hot and dry, and the Texas sun beat down on Walker’s pale white skin, but he kept walking, without once complaining. After hours of trekking on U.S. 87, Walker reached the passage to Interstate 20, where he was picked up by a man in a rust-red pickup truck. The man was headed towards Dallas, and agreed o take Walker that far, an offer that Walker graciously accepted.
“We rode for **** near five and a half hours on the highway to Dallas,” Walker would later tell me. “We didn’t stop for food, or drink or nuthin’. At one point the driver had to stop for a pisscall, that is, to use the bathroom, or at least that’s why I reckon we stopped; he didn’t speak but maybe three words the whole ride. He just stopped at this roadside gas station, went in for a few minutes and then back into the car and back on the road we went again. Real funny character the driver was, big bearded fellow with a mean look on his brow, but I never would have made it to Dallas if not for him, so I guess he can’t have been all that mean, huh?”
Walker finally arrived in Dallas as the nighttime reached the peak of its darkness. The driver of the pickup truck dropped him off without a word, at a corner bus stop in the middle of the city. Walker had no place to stay, nobody to call, and worst of all, no idea where he was at all. He walked from the corner bus stop to a run-down inn on the side of the road, and got himself a room for the night for $5. The beds were hard and the sheets were *****, and the room itself had no bathroom, but it served its purpose and it kept Walker out of the streets for the night.
The next morning, Texas Walker Norris woke up to a growl. It was his stomach, and suddenly, Walker remembered that he hadn’t eaten in almost two days. He checked out of the inn he had slept in, and stepped into the streets of Dallas, wearing the same clothes as he wore the day before, and carrying the same canvas bag with the soap and the knife in it. After about an hour or so of walking around the city, Walker came up to a small ***** restaurant that served food within his price range. He ordered Chicken Fried Steak with a side of home fries, and devoured them in seconds flat. After that, Walker took a stroll around the city, so as to take in the sights before he left. Eventually, he found his way to the city bus station, where he boarded a Greyhound bus to Tallahassee. It took him 26 hours to get there, and at the end of everything he vowed to never take a bus like that again.
“See I’m from Texas, and in Texas, everything is real big and free and stuff. So I ain’t used to being cooped up in nothin’ for a stended period of time. I tell you, I came off that bus shaking, sweating, you name it. The poor woman sitting next to me thought I was gunna have a heart attack.” Walker laughed.
When Walker laughed, you understood why Texans are so proud of where they live. His was a low, rumbling bellow that built up into a thunderous, booming laugh, finally fizzling into the raspy chuckle of a man who had spent his whole life smoking, yet in perfect health. When Walker laughed, you felt something inside you shake and vibrate, both in fear and utter admiration of the giant Texan man in front of you. If men were measured by their laughs, Walker would certainly be hailed as king amongst men; but he wasn’t. No, he was just another man, a lowly man with a perpetual childish grin, despite the godliness of his bellowing laughter.
“When I finally got to Tallahassee I didn’t know what to do. I sure as hell didn’t have my wits about me, so I just stumbled all around the city like a chick without its head on. I swear, people must a thought I was a madman with the way I was walkin’, all wide-eyed and frazzled and stuff. One guy even tried to mug me, ‘till he saw I didn’t have no money on me. Well that and I got my knife out of my bag right on time.” Another laugh. “You know I knew one thing though, which was I needed to find a place to stay the night.”
So Walker found himself a little pub in Tallahassee, where he ordered one beer and a shot of tequila. To go with that, he got himself a burger, which he remembered as being one of the better burgers he’d ever had. Of course, this could have just been due to the fact that he hadn’t eaten a real meal in so long. At some point during this meal, Walker turned to the bartender, an Irish man with short red hair and muttonchops, and asked him if he knew where someone could find a place to spend the night in town.
“Well there are a few hotels in the downtown area but ah wouldn’t recommend stayin’ in them. That is unless ye got enough money to jus’ throw away like that, which ah know ye don’t because ah jus’ saw ye take yer money out to pay for the burger. That an’ the beer an’ shot. Anyway, ye could always stay in one of the cheap motels or inns in Tallahassee. That’ll only cost ye a few dollars for the night, but ye might end up with bug bites or worse. Frankly, I don’t see many an option for ye, less you wanna stay here for the night, which’ll only cost ye’, oh, about nine-dollars-whattaya-say?”
Walker was stunned by the quickness of the Irishman’s speech. He had never heard such a quick tongue in Texas, and everyone knew Texas was auction-ville. He didn’t know whether to trust the Irishman or not, but he didn’t have the energy or patience to do otherwise, and so Walker Norris paid nine dollars to spend the night in the back room of a Tallahassee pub.
As it turns out, the Irishman’s name was Jeremy O’Neill, and he had just come to America about a year and a half ago. He had left his hometown in Dublin, where he owned a bar very similar to the one he owned now, in search of a girl he had met that said she lived in Florida. As it turns out, Florida was a great deal larger than Jeremy had expected, and so he spent the better part of that first year working odd jobs and drinking his pay away. He had worked in over 25 different cities in Florida, and on well over 55 different jobs, before giving up his search and moving to Tallahassee. Jeremy wrote home to his brother, who had been manning his bar in Dublin the whole time Jeremy was away, and asked for some money to help start himself off. His brother sent him the money, and after working a while longer as a painter for a local construction company, he raised enough money to buy a small run down bar in central Tallahassee, the bar he now ran and operated. Unfortunately, the purchase had left him in terrible debt, and so Jeremy had set up a bed in the back room, where he often housed overly drunk customers for a price. This way, he could make back the money to pay for the rest of the bar.
Walker sympathized with the Irishman’s story. In Jeremy, he saw a bit of himself; the tired, broken traveler, in search of a runaway love. Jeremy’s story depressed Walker though, who was truly convinced his own would end differently. He knew, he felt, that he would find Lisa in the end.
Walker hardly slept that night, despite having paid nine dollars for a comfortable bed. Instead, he got drunk with Jeremy, as the two of them downed a bottle of whisky together, while sitting on the floor of the pub, talking. They talked about love, and life, and the existence of God. They discussed their childhoods and their respective journeys away from their homes. They laughed as they spoke of the women they loved and they cried as they listened to each other’s stories. By the time Walker had sobered up, it was already morning, and time for a brand new start. Jeremy gave Walker a free bottle of whiskey, which after serious protest, Walker put in his bag, next to his knife and the soap. In exchange, Walker tried to give Jeremy some money, but Jeremy stubbornly refused, like any Irishman would, instead telling Walker to go **** himself, and to send him a postcard when he got to New York. Walker thanked Jeremy for his hospitality, and left the bar, wishing deeply that he had slept, but not regretting a minute of the night.
Little time was spent in Tallahassee that day. As soon as Walker got out on the streets, he asked around to find out where the closest highway was. A kind old woman with a cane and bonnet told him where to go, and Walker made it out to the city limits in no time. He didn’t even stop to look around a single time.
Once at the city limits, Walker went into a small roadside gas station, where he had a microwavable burrito and a large 50-cent slushy for breakfast. He stocked up on chips and peanuts, knowing full well that this may have been his last meal that day, and set out once again, after filling up his water supply. Walker had no idea where to go from Tallahassee, but he knew that if he wanted to reach his girlfriend’s mother’s house, he had to go north. So Walker started walking north, on a road the gas station attendant called FL-61, or Thomasville Road. He walked for something like seven or eight miles, before a group of college kids driving a camper pulled up next to him. They were students at the University of Georgia and were heading back to Athens from a road trip they had taken to New Orleans. The students offered to take Walker that far, and Walker, knowing only that this took him north, agreed.
The students drove a large camper with a mini-bar built into it, which they had made themselves, and stacked with beer and water. They had been down in New Orleans for the Mardi Gras season, and were now returning, thought the party had hardly stopped for them. As they told Walker, they picked a new designated driver every day, and he was appointed the job of driving until he got bored, while all the others downed their beers in the back of the camper. Because their system relied on the driver’s patience, they had almost doubled the time they should have made on their trip, often stopping at roadside motels so that the driver could get his drink on too. These were their “pit-stops”, where they often made the decision to either eat or court some of the local girls drunkenly.
This leg of the trip Walker seemed to glaze over quickly. He didn’t talk much about the ride, the conversation, or the people, but from what I gathered, from his smile and the way his eyes wandered, I could tell it was a fun one. Basically, the college kids, of which I figure there were about five or six, got Walker drunk and drove him all the way to Athens, Georgia, where they took him to their campus and introduced him to all of their friends. The leader of the group, a tall, athletic boy with long brown hair and dimples, let him sleep in his dorm for the night, and set him up with a ride to the train station the next morning. There, Walker bought himself a ticket to Atlanta, and said his goodbyes. Apparently, the whole group of students followed him to the station, where they gave him some food and said goodbye to him. One student gave Walker his parent’s number, telling him to call them when he got to Atlanta, if he needed a place to sleep. Then, from one minute to the next, Walker was on the train and gone.
When Walker got to Atlanta, he did not call his friend’s family right away. Instead, he went to the first place he saw with food, which happened to be a small, rundown place that sold corndogs and coke for a dollar per item. Walker bought himself three corndogs and a coke, and strolled over to a nearby park, where, he sat down on a bench and ate. As Walker sat, dipping his corndogs into a paper plate covered in ketchup, an old woman took the seat directly next to him, and started writing in a paper notepad. He looked over at her, and tried to see what she was writing, but she covered up her pad and his efforts were wasted. Still, Walker kept trying, and eventually the woman got annoyed and mentioned it.
“Sir, I don’t mind if you are curious, but it is terribly, terribly rude to read over another person’s shoulder as they write.” The woman’s voice was rough and beautiful, changed by time, but bettered, like fine wine.
“I’m sorry ma’am, it’s just that I’ve been on the road for a while now, and I reckon I haven’t really read anything in, ****, probably longer than that. See I’m lookin’ to find my girlfriend up north, on account of she took my car and ran away from home and all.”
“Well that is certainly a shame, but I don’t see why that should rid you of your manners.” The woman scolded Walker.
“Yes ma’am, I’m sorry. What I meant to convey was that, I mean, I kind of just forgot I guess. I haven’t had too much time to exercise my manners and all, but I know my mother would have educated me better, so I apologize but I just wanted to read something, because I think that’s something important, you know? I’ll stop though, because I don’t want to annoy you, so sorry.”
The woman seemed amused by Walker, much as a parent finds amusement in the cuteness of another’s children. His childish, simple smile bore through her like a sword, and suddenly, her own smile softened, and she opened up to him.
“Oh, don’t be silly. All you had to do was ask, and not be so unnervingly discreet about it.” She replied, as she handed her pad over to Walker, so that he could read it. “I’m a poet, see, or rather, I like to write poetry, on my own time. It relaxes me, and makes me feel good about myself. Take a look.”
Walker took the pad from the woman’s hands. They were pale and wrinkly, but were held steady as a rock, almost as if the age displayed had not affected them at all. He opened the pad to a random page, and started reading one of the woman’s poems. I asked Walker to recite it for me, but he said he couldn’t remember it. He did, however, say that it was one of the most beautiful things he had ever read, a lyrical, flowing, ode to t

Despite your resignation and sudden departure,
shooting in the direction of Not Me as soon as my lips parted
and those fateful words escaped,

you never left.

The refuge of cool bedsheets in bedclothes on a bed too big for me
houses nightmares and a silent love affair,
neither tangible nor real,
but when the sun peers through the curtains and my REM becomes
remember, I do it; I sit up, kick back damp bedsheets and bedclothes
and let my feet dangle from the heights.

A cantaloupe, a fragrant pollen drenched lilly, ginger beer,
these are my companions in a desolate Whole Foods.
I stroke, smell, drink, relive the ecstasy of my own reveries,
the ones I created before I lay eyes on you,
before, when your name was merely a source of laughter,
like some fat obnoxious cartoon on television,
lovable and detestable in one viewing.

I walk to my car and turn the ignition-- that makes my fetal position
in fifteen minutes
significantly more realistic.

Somewhere between the interstate and the inter state of my mind,
the threads unravel and dissolve,
and the knot that stated not, no, never,
says yes, you **** well can, now, and always.

A normal kind of guy
Just the guy
No cosmologist
Sans Christian
******* the droplet suns
Distant in the blackened sky

Gotta 'and'er some
The bristled gristle
The cryogenic iris
Steel teeth gnashing
Right-toe left
Ardent in an autobiography

Good man
Soft man

Locomoted his GMC
to the Sea
Thought maybe
With precise aim he
could undertow away
paradise.

No pick-me-ups
In copper-channels
That Ionized the pick-up-truck
With archaea iron
that ugly duck
Reminiscent of the man
In all but--

A castaway
Stowaway
The man who never hesitates
Bop upon the interstate
Lost within
concritical maze

Shoring up
Going home
Giving up
Turned to stone
Marble chin
Solumn grin
Chlidren sing
Seeking wings
How'd he know
Where to go
Will he see
What it means?

He's the guy
The one with the lollipop lap
Licking the syrup off the lip
Of a sweet polished sapphire
Gin
And the kids
My god
They think he
ODYSSEUS
And his dog not yet
Dead but depressive in the gloom
Howling into the midnight grass
And the creatures that stalk
With their ******* youth

Soon their weight will hit the deck
And like a noose,
Break the joints
The planks of which would stress
And bend his eyes upon his head.

God willing
Should he be exhumed
His energies excape to the river
And float,
Penultimate,
into the sea.

“My sole goal in life is to keep racing
down the interstate without a clock
so I can keep going until people forget who I am.”
In my head I knew I was wrong
hypocritical, insane, illogical, but above all I was still
humane!
This, yes, this sole fact is what keeps me
separated from you
draw a straight line down the road we lived on
the squares and the circles.

You, with your fancy plaque and NHS bumper sticker
With the family of four and no reason to feel failure
With your perfect scores and magnificent vernacular
Who let you have it so easy?!

Me, with my Jimi Hendrix poster
family of who knows how many
and the chance to earn my GED in a few years
Why was it me?!

You met your wife in the 10th grade
You gave her a promise ring and everything
Even took her with you on spring break
Who said you didn't have to try?!

I was placed in the wards that year
they said it was insanity
I thought I was just thinking ahead
Why can’t they understand?!

BUT THEY ALWAYS UNDERSTAND YOU!

You, your Shakespeare perfect jargon
Mr. Right, Perfect, next coming of Beethoven
You were made to please everyone and become important!

And that’s what separates us.
Even though it’s the same street that raised us
I bought the Harley and your parents got you the Chevy.
And I recall the one time I was flying down the interstate
And caught up to you as you were going nothing higher than 70.
I stared at you and you kept your eyes on the road.
I don’t blame you, I knew that you just wanted to see my bomber jacket
I have a skull on fire on the back of it
So I gave you a great view
hope you enjoyed it.

A rest stop outside of Richmond VA.

The sun is bright and annoying as **** as usal the woman pull's up  in a brand new Mustang
cherry red gleams in the parking lot.
She's living the life but hey sometimes when ya stop to take a restroom break ***** happens.

Halfway back to Carolina me and my loyal hetro companion Bone.
Are doing what two full blooded American men would do riding like bats outta hell
going through this womans cd collection Alanis Morrisett dear lord man do they hand these ******* out as soon as they get there periods?

But isnt it ironic dont ya think?
Flying down the interstate music blasting beers gathering on the floor like brainless ***** at a
Justin Bieber concert.
I gaze into the rearview only to come to realize like weirdos in a schoolyard we are not alone.

Looking at from the backseat appeared to be some sort of old ****** in a diper hey ***** but whatever
floats your boat jesus these flashbacks are getting to be hell.

My amigo slash  fellow tripper of the light fantastic was in  a trance already
into track seven you oughta know the brainwashing was a ******* dam lesbian **** front!
Even I was fighting the urge to go to the lilth fair and stop shaving but the fellas
were so against the natural look oh snap.

Bone dear lord snap outta it were not in a movie thearter!
Sorry Gonz what the ***** up ?
Well my mexican amigo I belive theres a little perve dwarf in the backseat that or that acid
crazy Larry sold me really is kicking my ****.

Looking at me like most do with that strange since of hey should i just get out here
or go with the trip he looked for a second.
Silent in a awkward sense like when my prom date caught me masterbaiting in her closet the night befor
hey it looked better on me anyways  yeah dont ask.

Bone finally spoke you crazy ***** it's a ******* kid **** we stole a ******* kid were so ******.
Jesus we had both been so safe how was i gonna explain this i thought deeply then finally
took a detor from my usal insanity to do something i seldom do.
Think.  

Well Bone looks like were gonna have to get a abortion.
It's already born *******.
My deep thinking and total drunk amigo made a good point it would get kinda messy.

Well maybe we can check it's collar or drop it in the post office box or even a dumpster
hey dont knock it thats where momma gonzo misplaced me strippers there so care free
and total ***** im just saying but enough  bout Katy Perry

Dude are you totally ****** nuts?
It was at that moment the little bald man began to cry.
Bone calm down cant you see your upsetting it Jesus wheres my manners give him this.

Gonz dude it's my last one.
Bone had a point but this little hairless doorstop needed to take the edge off so
the beer was his.

Miles passed as we thought what to do but with this little jumping bean
it wasnt gonna be easy getting into the ******* or getting him a fake ID.
course we could always say he was that dwarf from Austin Powers
But hey even I had some morals the poor little ******* had it bad enough let alone to be connected
to Mike Myers im just saying.

The ride to grandma Gonzos chop shop proved to long for my two drunken companions hey it was past Bones bed time after all he starts drinking at 6 am  .
I gazed down apon the little amigo as he slept so peaceful must have just had a ******* ahh memories.

Then Bone finally came to Gonz what the **** dude I told you stop cuddling with me people are gonna talk!
Like they havent already just go with it and yes I am happy to see you.
After a brief fight and some make up hugs and cookies mmm cookies and ****** harassment it goes togather like poetry and misery winning.

Gonz where the hell is the kid?
My friend seemed concerned I wonder did these two have something going on
yeah maybe that was it hmmm never trust a drunk or a bald headed dwarf in a diper
but grandpa wasnt all that bad.

Gonz wheres the baby !
The sound of the car being crushed made it hard to hear yet still I could here jagged little pill
playing ranting bout what true ****** men were amen to that sister.
Jesus that Canadian ***** died hard!

  Gonz !
Finally I snapped outta my trance oh yeah that dwarf dont worry he's in the trunk.
The trunk! The ******* trunk!
Hey dont worry I left him some beer and penuts jesus man calm down must been his time of the month.

Bone was frantic like when he herd there wasa beer truck overturned on the interstate.
Tears rolled down his eye's once like any good friend i did what all true men do when a bro is crying.
Video taped it and put it on you tube to laugh my *** off later.

Gonz how could you ?
Bone he's in a better place now whats wrong?
You killed him how could you destroy such a innocent thing.

Dear lord I know my pinto is old but it's far from a deatn trap well okay it kinda is but relax
see i popped the trunk grapped the little hamster by the leg held him up high
he's fine a little stinky hey if he cant hold his  ***** thats his issue.
Btw where do we get feed for this thing cause im almost outta dog biscuts?

After Bone finally stopped being such a drama queen Jesus that album had some strange powers.
We were off with are little stinky drunken friend brothers bent on sharing experience
and drugs and maybe some strippers hey kids are chick magnets im just saying
I should have stole one ages ego.

We laughed we cried we found out dipers can really get filled up .
He sometimes it's best not to hold everything in.

And as are money flew from us like braincells from a ******* shoot.
I called the smartest most rational person i knew Richard Shepard.
Who after cussing me for waking him up at 3 in the morning finally explained
it all to me Jesus who ever knew thats where babies came from.

So there we parted togatehr the three amigo's
Man what a party hey Bone?
Dam right hey Gonz i got the stamps on his forehead help me get him in the
post office box.

And after a brief moment like my mind are little amigo was gone
Outta are lives.
We stood there silent.
Hey Gonz wanna go back to the *******.
Amigo all i gotta say is **** yeah !

And like that we were off to more adventures that rambled on for hors till ya want to strangle me or take me home and keep me like a demented perverted puppy that although seemed cute
if petted would just **** your leg.

A week later

the woman sat there with little wahtever the hell his name was in his high chair.
Harvey get the camera I think he's gonna say his first word.
The two parent's so excited  come on whatever the hell your name is say it it.

The little rascal grinned from ear to looking at the object of most means thoughts
I belive the proper term is *******.
Building up the strength from somewhere deep inside.
His parent's so excited and happy he was gonna talk also  hahaha im not right.

Finally little whats his name spoke
****!  ****! ****!
His parents stunned I told you frank not to cuss around him.
I didnt and my names not Frank *****!

***** you I told you your family's ****** up side would ***** everything up.
Yeah couldnt be the total ***** side rubbed off either huh?
It was like a scene from the Waltons.
Little whats his name speaking his first word  two parents
cussing each other out it's so holesome reminds me of home.

Untill next time watch your kids cause theres some bad influences out there
unlike my wholesome ****.
Stay crazy Gonzo

i. the curly, green-haired
leo with the cry-baby tattoo
on her left calf; fish net stockings and
loud guitar playing and
menthol cigarettes. driving through
the park at 9 pm, ***** shots,
the white house with the a-frame roof,
hugs that made your heart feel as warm
as she did

crying as i left my room again to be
intertwined with a girl who did not love me, but i wanted to;
months pass, lonely car rides with
one-sided conversations and
seven years gone,
quiet disconnection
that made you feel as cold
as i did

ii. brown eyes, brown skin,
round glasses and chicago streetlights.
holding each other close on the subway
lakehouse parties in the beginning of spring and
pisces season and tarot readings and
soft kisses on the train.
holding hands at the aquarium,
sweet poetry and calm and
a sense of oneness that made you feel
important

hurt for the third time
a panic, a loss
i held their heart in my hands and
let it fall
harsh
unimportant
i still carry the guilt on my fingertips

iii. short hair. freckled cheeks, i
fell in love with the way the skin
crinkled around her eyes when she smiled.
an apartment, a home built
around our lips touching
wrapped in blankets on the couch,
dense smoke and her hand on my leg while she
drove. chinese food and
waking up against her chest and
laughing so hard
my ribs hurt

crashing. her anger withering away my
heartstrings; pain and
crying alone in the bathtub
moving away
drunk tears on the interstate
punching my thighs
in place of the way her
words made
me hurt

the earth is curved - sure y’all knew that.  
but to get to the Northwest,
Interstate 84
ain’t le route plus directe

nope curve north to Ontario,
wave to Bex as I cross over
London and Toronto, also can’t recall
which poet from Rochester hails,
or did they shuffle off to Buffalo?

Crossing Erie, Huron, and Michigan Great Lakes all,
brings to mind
my mother’s birthplace,
Last of the Mohicans,
and the three years I did in the Cleveland Penitentiary,
where sun was illegal and baseball was a pretend play
of cowboys and Indians
but by god, it made me
the penitent fella I am today

Look skyward to Montreal,
yes, there he is, the Leo Priest,
the baffled king,
blessing this poetic meet ‘n greet trip
with a smiling unsurprising
hallelujah

Apparently some US citizens still can traverse O Canada,
even if one forgot their passports,
and are not PNG’s (Persons Not so GREAT)

over Minneapolis shed a tear for Diane,
a poet- gone-missing, and wonder if you reader come from
St. Cloud, Fargo or Duluth, Bismarck or Aberdeen,
surely they still speak poetic English there
in a twangy metering methodology  - well, message me asap

wow there really is a Saskatoon!

the pilot asks us to lean left in our seats
to help turn the plane
so we go to Portland and not to Vancouver...
me thinks he might be a touch Rockie Mountain High,
considering we are at 30 thousand something Imperial,
as he walks the main cabin with an oxygen mask and a
huuuuuge grin

see the distant Cascades
through a crack in the shuttered windows,
must be close to “the coast”
(as if, harrumph, there were but one)

ah, words in the clouds, ripe for the plucking
must be getting close to Oregon,
where poets grow on trees, woody words like ****,
and log-float poems down the Columbia to the sea

gonna drink me some poets
under the table cause this
trip I ain’t no driving and I am already
“flying” ‘n scribing and arriving
on a high tide and a good wind

when I’m driving down the interstate
I always have the same debate
I feel like I’m stuck in a **** crate

I would like to go.
drive down to Denver Colorado.
I would like to see
the west coast beach

when I’m driving down these side roads
I only see these toads
I would like to feel
that west coast real

I would like to walk,
have a nice talk.
I would like to be
with those that are free.

I’m parked in a driveway
and it’s only one way.
it’s definitely not -
it’s definitely not what i thought.

Oh King of
mixed signals,
could you once,
be clear?
Your red light,
green light,
yellow light
are all on
at once.
Causing traffic
on the interstate of
my mind.
Backed up for hours,
your red light,
green light,
yellow light
are all on
at once.
Stay.
Go.
Slow.
Oh King of
mixed signals,
make up
your mind.

Blood on the interstate,this world is an awful place.I don't know what I can doto convince you to make a change.Why can't you understand?There is nothing that gives a manthe right to abuse and destroythe animals or the land.It seems death is everywhereand nobody seems to care.How can you just keep drivinglike you don't see the bodies lying there?You've paved over all their homes.Now they have nowhere to go.You **** them without a second thoughtif they dare to step on your roads.Your apathy just breaks my heart.Your cruelty tears it apart.How can I make you see this when I don't even know where to start?

six-inch heels abandoned
in lampless corner       grimy pennies embedded in carpet

rent's due

wedding band girl "fab polka dot frocks"
waterfalling past knees        outta place
on casino bus destined for rest under Ft. Worth stars
now, now    ******* borealis speckled dice

true love waits

socialite lip balm and bourgeoisie hips compete
in bidding war over which black face triggerpulls
which black face eyes the ground
passerby the red light      the green light
all night diner    egg on chin   coffee-stained porcelain   teeth

"I forgave, I think. I forget."

crowded and paranoid in the left lane    the right lane
empty and weak and surrender and soiled underwear in ammonia nursing home
children is a word     time is a lie the polka dot and the interstate ain't selling
divorce the consequence of acoustic shadows

reblog   undo   #sotrue    reblog

living through x-ray radiotherapy the dotted gown
never the veiny calves or the blush or the eyeliner
somewhere in North Texas shawtys are in the club
shawtys are backin' it up    shawtys are dropin' it down

hit me+hit me+hit me=blackjack mishap

the marvel of the wind and of wind turbines
cognac decade brides     the epitome of class and natural elegance
standing like oil derricks and treated like oil wells
so secretive and philanthropic

this taxon remains nameless

casino turned dance hall   dance hall   skinny ties still a thing
this wine is good. is it a merlot?    no.    this is purely recreational
for birthdays   for weddings    and Ft. Worth missionaries
10-50 passengers   we've got 53, no 54 #hahahaha #whoops #party

who needs unprescribed drugs? me, me (!)

decomposing mascara sweat on brow the interstate no longer lit
polka dots has got the suicide by Manet pulled up
on her iPhone the financial stress   which shudders warm-blooded moms
on her lips    every mother a librarian   every mother a swing-pusher

but digression    next to bitterness   the lowest sin

edging the cultural gateway of the old west
miracles in and miracles out of tradition following
the slender bends of middle ancient Trinity River
children a word   pattycake a game

and time   time a lie we left to museum panoramas

til I get home
and realize
that despite making people laugh
i'm all alone
seeing images of chrome
i'm in my zone
suicide keeps callin me
on my mobile phone
friends turn foe
round the globe I roam
the oceans white foam
sky so blue
for a moment
I forget I'm feeling blue
in a sense that
I can't comprehend
whether or not
dollars and cents
and payin rent
will get my sent
2 heaven
so I do drugs
2 forget
wait til I wake up
nobody home
back 2 the show I go
buckle my seat
and pray for good health
on the interstate belt
I'm on the road
to hell

Interstate Ten before it was an interstate
Arrowing west to California, one lane
That way and one lane this way; one way west
And one way back again
                                                    admitting defeat

In the desert a rest stop. Desperate trees.
They seemed as desperate as a pilgrim
Lost in his going somewhere, and they
Weren’t going anywhere among the dunes

They said to one pilgrim, “Whatever dream
You’re living – it might not work out, okay?

Zeus had plastic surgery,
his fingertips shaved off
so he would not leave prints
when he committed
his archetypal crimes.

He changed his name to Saturn
then to Cronos
then to Albatross Von Mariner,
all this subterfuge
just to disquise the fact
that he goes borderline ballistic
when he doesn't get his way.

He pulled Icarus out of the sky,
wounded Prometheus’ side,
left Sisyphus on a steep lonely mountain,
dared Demeter to save her daughter,
yet these souls persist
in mnemonic literary defiance
of a single fact…

No god is greater than you,
the karma jury has come in
and Zeus is sentenced
to five years of community service
on Interstate Highway 5.

He will wear a yellow clown suit
with a red rubber nose
and floppy green shoes
with a fast food tray hanging from his neck
and he will walk in traffic snarls
stopping at every car
to clean the windows
to sell hotdogs
with purple relish and black mustard
wrapped in grey buns
as unappetizing and pathetic
as the lies
he has told us about ourselves
for so long.

The drive
From Orange County to Los Angeles
Had never been so long.

Broken wipers
Black drugs
Psychotic episodes
Wet roads
And

“This is it.”
(I thought)
“I’m going to die this way.”

High
Too thin
Frightened
And
Without a Home

He continues to speed North
Trying to get his emotions to go South
And I’m frozen in the passenger seat

I smell of dirt
***
And blood

Spiraling into the abyss
I tried to remember his eyes
Inside the elevator

I stared his way,
But only the drugs gawked back

I prayed to a God I’d never seen
Begging to be saved from
My own decisions.

The demons pounded on the van
Some more
They weren’t going to rest
Tonight.

Tonight
We were dressed in black
The van shrouded in it
Tonight
We belonged to them

“This is it”

I inhaled the fumes

And surrendered.

Dear Mom,
Hey! How’re things?
So, LA is weird. It’s all sticks and stones and billion dollar homes. Last week on the Metro I forgot my headphones, but it all worked out because there was a homeless man who was naked from the waist down except for a pair of Spiderman underwear with the tag still attached who was singing “Sweet Caroline” at the top of his lungs.
Everyone here is someone important. They live the philosophy of Descartes like scripture.
I think therefore I am... exhausted. I haven’t been sleeping because my mind has taken up running, which means it’s acclimating to the culture here quicker than my body because everyone in this town ******’ loves running almost as much as they love vintage shoes and car horns.
It’s strange though, I can’t shake this feeling that I’ve lost something.
Anyway, I love you.

Dear Mom,
Thank you for the eyes.
Last afternoon a stranger told me they were beautiful, and on a day where every mirror seemed to be of the funhouse variety, it was a welcome compliment.
I’m sorry I haven’t called in a few weeks, please don’t think it’s because I don’t miss you.
It’s just, lately, I’ve been feeling a bit like a marionette whose had his strings clipped.
Slumped and crumpled.
Small.
Collapsed and sprawled cracked in some forgotten corner--the hollow knock of wood bouncing across the walls of this mezzanine dressed in finer things than me that have been fostered by
Father Time and his Mistress Stillness.
And I know how you worry.
You worry ‘til bones bruise and still your skeleton aches to shoulder my melancholy yourself, so I can’t bear to bridge this distance with crestfallen phone calls where the past year locks fully loaded on six-shooter lips--the way heels cling to cliffs edge--before finally, reluctantly, free falling; firing off each round.
Six words aimed with eyes closed as if it were up to God to decide where they’d hit:
“I wish I could come home...”
Then your silent, empty-cartridge, catacomb sigh would just teach this telephone how cavernously a mother’s heart aches for her children.


Dear Dad,
I know it goes without saying, but thank you for the check and the note attached to it.
It’s hard to describe how much home I find in the deft curves of your surgeon’s cursive.
I hope you’re doing well. Last time I saw you, you seemed a bit like a lit cigarette filter tip watching the singe approach.
Maybe it was just the embers of your eyes glazed over by one too many heavy handed nightcaps.
And this isn’t to say the Superman who stayed up late nights holding me through fits of anxiety has up and flown away, this is just to say you seem to be flickering.
This is just to say I hope you still laugh at bad movies with the thunderous bass of July fourth fireworks.
This is just to say I’ve been staying up late nights holding on to yesterday.

Dear Mom,
The care package was unnecessary.
I now have more Skittles than any one human should ever consider consuming in a lifetime. So thanks. I know I told you, at some point, years ago, that they were my favorite… but *******.
Really though, waking up to that box on my doorstep choked me up quicker than a swift kick to the nuts. You have a way of weaving through this heartland like a Middle-American interstate and I love you so much for that. It’s just next time, maybe try something that doesn’t have the nutritional value of flash-fried butter sticks.
But not too healthy. Maybe fruit leathers?
P.S. Keep the homemade fudge coming.

Dear Dad,
Forgive the handwriting of an earthquake.
My hands are shaking again like when I was young. I’ve been finding stillness, though, in between sips of five dollar coffee and midnight cigarette drags beneath and incandescent moon that seems to use breeze hands to play cat’s cradle with strings of smoke.
Life is fast here. It’s all gas pedal and touch-and-go breaks.
P.S. If you see mom, don’t mention the cigarettes.

Dear Mom,
I got your e-mail about smoking and the ensuing health issues it leads to. Graphic stuff. That was super informative and totally unprompted. Thanks for that.

Dear Dad,
...

Dear Mom,
Stop worrying so much, you’re making my bones ache.

Dear Dad,
In my dreams I am a lighthouse with an unfocused beam. I’m searching for something, I just don’t know what.
At least I’m sleeping right?

Dear Mom,
These days blur together with the fading speed of a half-life hardly lived to its fullest.
Was it different for you when you were my age? I shift between a drifting stick stuck in a current and desert stone.

Dear Dad,
In my dreams I’m a lighthouse.
There’s a fog horn distant.
I’m still searching for I don’t know what I’m searching for something and there’s a fog horn far off like it’s from someone elses dream but at least I’m sleeping.

Dear Mom,
Do you believe that streams take sticks where they need to be?

Dear Dad,
Have you dreamt of fog horns lately?
I am a lighthouse looking for a nameless something in fog so thick I should be choking.
But I’m not.
At my feet there are rocks and they’re jagged but I’m not anxious because they stay up late nights holding me.
And in the distance there’s a fog horn that seems to be saying “All is not lost.”

Dear Mom,
Do you think that desert stones are waiting for something?

Dear Dad,
In my dreams a lighthouse is built upon jagged rocks that are shaped like your hands. I’m searching for something and even though my lamplit electric torch eyes can’t touch the sky through this ******* fog, I keep them burning because I should be choking but I’m not, I’m finding stillness in the way breeze plays with smoke strings and far off there’s a fog horn distant promising “All is not lost.”

Dear Mom,
This town is all sticks and stones and broken home drifters.

Dear Dad,
All is not lost.

The letter was a warm invitation  and a perfect getaway I needed to lay low after are  brief rise to cult status i had partaken of the
rewards of semi obscurity and had a few angry fathers searching for me.

The big apple it called to me like a stripper apon a pole demanding thats all you got is ones you cheap *******?
My true sidkick  like robin to batman just less gay and good looking.

Met me at the station  Amigo how the hell are you now were's the bar?
Drinks on you right?
Cause when your a semi celeb slash rockstar of hello why the **** should i pay.
Why should women be the only ones to walk into a bar with three dollars  in there purse and get rip roaring drunk.
Besides if i was a chick id be a **** *****.

The stage was set the bar was filled with strange sounding people
all asking my well know  brother in madness who tha  ***** this *******.
****** good man im not just any ******* im Gonzo.

Beer on another mans tab always tasted better   just remember ******
im not putting out   well unless  you ask me niceley  or pay  me
like that rich old lady used to who  also was missing her leg.

yes what memeories id slip her a mickey  rearrange her  clothes and after she woke  up tell her what a wild night we had yes i know
true romance.

BUT ENOUGH WITH THE FOREPLAY CHILDREN!

We began are quest like any other  seeing how much ***** we could
hold  till  normal people began to make sense.
I work everyday busting my freakin ***  still it aint enough Gonz.
The angry little italian man who's wallet i had borrowed said beside me.
Hey a girls gotta eat.
Dear lord man you mean you actully have to go back everyday hey is this a gold card   your worse than my wife freakin ***.
Sir you are a charmer  what angry little people  lived here.

Bill lets hit the ******* im in need of culture  and some naked women amigo  come on im  drinks are on Vinny who gives a ****.

After bill  dipped into his life savings to pay the tab we hopped
a cab headed for Manhattan  to the place  of great myths and wonder
it called to great men from arond the world to bask in its beauty.

No not the statue of the giggantic woman  with a torch although i wondred  as i stood below her ****** why cant she be wearing a mini skirt.
You gotta love a big girl  she was such a tease.

No as i stood  tears meeting my bloodshot eyes
befor the mecca  the big apple and the home  of legends and playground to the *****.

Hey get the **** outta the street *******.
It"s Gonzo  man ****** how many times do i need to repeat myself.
Scores a ******* to the rich  a fools paradise **** Disneyland.
Ive been on spacemountian most my life anyways.

As through the doors we were met by a scene of true
art much like the Mona Lisa  if she were a stripper named candice cane  in red high heels hanging from a stripper  pole.

the drinks flowed  the lap dances were well you get the point.
I realized my two drink minimum freind was a little how should i say it poetically.
******* wasted.

As he tried  to give a stripper named honey a lap dance  
never mind him ladies he's my  ******* brother.
In a plan of true drunken genius i explained he was sick and
his last wish was for his older brother to hookup with
some   hot  strippers to have  ahh  some  after hours activities  
Who's ***** bingo.
how i love  bango I mean bingo.

Tears welled up in there eyes  thank god they didnt question why my little brother was 58.
Hey there strippers  and if they  were all going to college  then
this would be a ******* library  not a high  dollar  titie bar.

Librarians with there hair up short tight skirts and glasses
i swear you get busted for  having a little alone time on a public
computer   in that over rated book store for a second time and everyone  flips ****.
Society is so judgemental  but that's another story  
and court case   away.

The plastic fake boobie women had fallin for it.
So like drunken ninjas in a fog of  dellusion and wild turkey we made are last exit to brooklyn.
  
Hey  Gonz why do these chicks keep asking how much longer do i have.
Smacking my friend swiftly in the head had drawn the attention
of the strippers away from counting there tips and comparing there fake breast.

He's got brain dammage sometimes you have to hit em in the  
head to get him unstuck  ****** just look at the poor *******
he thinks he's not sick  oh dam life i need a cuddle girls.
Bill hold the camera.

We hit my friend's apartment like tourist slipping across the boarder grabing and  consuming great amounts of ***** and some sort of white powder  must have been for allergies.

Like squirrels  on acid  running down the interstate we were  
half nuts by the time that big orange ball thats causes me to wear sunglases did appear.

The ladies who names i cant recall  but honestly who gives a ****.
were passed out in bed Bill  in the fish tank  
calling himself captian nimmo  at this point led me to belive just maybe he had  a little  to much  but theres  many pitfalls on the road to Gonzo pacman.

Few men had the liver  or insanity of your's truely.
so after i talked my  tripping amigo off the frige.
Reassuring him its okay   amigo   thats what women look like naked.

I assure you  just cause they broke theres off doesnt mean they'll do the same to yours.
****** son why have a computer if not to look at **** and read long rants by insane people who call themself Gonzo?

After are long disscussion   about good touch bad touch and happy endings  we were off  again.

                                                 Ground Zero

                                        Silence And Respect

Standing there there was a shared  moment.
And a pain any soul could feel.
It wasnt about race or religion  it was about people
we all lost that day.
John Patrick Robbins stood beside a brother without a word
said as it spoke a million feeling's to the soul.

                           No one ever truley leaves there.

At the bus station a few cocktails behind us me and the kiddster
parted slightly hung over   and strung out smelling of reckless abandon
and strippers and wild turkey.

Apon the bus sitting by the window and some large man.
Who reaked of sardines  and  resembled a  cerial ******.
yes ladies he's single  and will probaly **** ya.
Wonder why he has a hard time getting dates?

As Bill waved goobye to his demented  brother from his own planet.
I waved back saying hey amigo  is this your debit card hell no worries
i'll keep  good care of it and reward myself.

As the bus left the station  my semi ******* friend chasing behind
yelling Gonzo i'll get you for this you freakin *******.
Kidster  that hurt i yelled but not as much as it's gonna hurt you bank account cheers.

That guy in black is ******  you  better watch out he's probaly connected.
No worries my funny smelling oversized friend
so am i replied.
I have the internet as well.

Bound for parts unknown Gonzo  made many stops
and if not for legal reason's  id share most of them.
Yes as i sat apon the beach  after taking a little side trip to Florida.
Drink in hand lost in deep thought's for which i cant remember.
      
Reflecting apon my time in the big apple.
And my friend the Kiddster
A toast to my friend.
Hope you like the post card  and the three week vacation
i treated myself to.

Sorry about the whole life savings thing but
who needs to retire in there 80's  work will keep you young girlfriend.

Cheers your slightly insane friend Gonzo.

An echo of slants
A frozen stretch
Humming terra ensconces - you
Forlorn
Ever-crooked
A never-stagnant aeriform environ
Tugging and vibrating through root
Hairs furling densely about and
Through
Dirt clods

The left of center
are in north bound throes of a dupe
and can't begin to forecast this wonder of polluted marvel,
in the morrow
my optics discharged in a catastrophic traversal

While whimsy and accidental feels like I've taken pills
a power rain this sobbing has spilled
No longer to be contained based on sheer will

Attacked by neurotic transcending
While sifting through files and photo stacks
Came across multiples of your smiling face
From when I shot you, a couple hundred miles back
No one would dare debase the abundance of your emitted grace

Bloodshot mist eyed and blind from tears
control lost during transport steer
Drips off my cheek pouring down my chest
Could make great sense to don a life vest
Filling up floorboards like a spraying firehose
Shattering cascades diamondize the windows
A single glance at an image turns farmland into rural seaquake
If they interview my lifeless corpse what a headline this will make,
turning tragedy into a foolish mistake
people will curse and laugh
Paved over roads now films unseen
when dusk fuse night from the weep my eyes dispensed
Elements effected by incidents
Rising waves climb over to decimate interstate 65
All over a tiny tear drop and her sweet smiling photograph

Waiting !
For your next message
Wondering what
Wondering who
Your long overdue

Promising !
While I cruise
CNN news
While I read between
Your lines

Breathing !
All of me
Is so hard to do
When I'm caught
Waiting on you

Interstate
Internet love sick song
Leaves  me
Tap Tap Tap
Blue

Western Montana rain fell
as songs played that reminded me of you
even songs I've never heard before
made me remember your touch.

Windshield wipers wiped away the water
but my lashes couldn't stop the tears
as southern Idaho came into view
here is where I used to stay with you.

This interstate never seemed so lonely
as the winds picked up and the storm raged
I should pull over and wait out the flood
but I have to keep going to get this town,

to get past you.

A hamster walked in the pub yeah you remember that was that group that has a ******* collection but no ******* group anymore  yeah that makes as much sense as me cheers Hello your truly more ****** up than I.

She was broken fragile and me I was a ***** poetic ******* who was always trying lend some umm comfort cause I'm a strictly well I'm kidding hey if I can take advantage of someone and see some ******* in the process it's all good in the hood.

Gonz give me one shot and a beer .
Of ***** right?
What she replied ?
The shot you mean like *****.

The woman looked at me as most do like I was a pervert they would never be near unless I was running bar within my mind on a poetry site yeah I know ******* freaky **** right?

Look Gonz I swear just for once stop being a perve and get my dam drink and just shut the **** up okay ?
I was in shock not from being snapped at from a female that happens all the time I'm used to being yelled at by my teenage wife skeeter .
Yeah just cause she catches you watching **** she gets all bent of shape .

Well sure I guess it was a little reckless going down the interstate but duh don't fall asleep while I'm driving I mean a girl has her needs  what can I say .

No the shock was more from getting my ding ding caught in my zipper hey you know how many ***** movies start out with a woman asking for a beer and a shot yeah I know I'm seriously ****** up but hey I'm fun.

So after some manly tears shed and a few stiff ones hahaha that just sounded wrong can you guess I write this **** while I'm drinking?
Anyways after this emotional hamster finally calmed a bit and put away her tazer  I had get to just what was or wasn't eating at her .

I thought deeply how I should speak to this fragile little hamster and the most caring sense I asked.

So ***** what the ***** eating at your ***?
Yeah I know I'm a charming ******* aren't I?

Well Gonz honestly it's just the way guys are on this site I mean why cant they judge my writing for just that instead of act like total horn dogs and send me messages and get all weird?

This was a deep question asked to a shallow ******* like myself .
Well honestly heres the truth and I know it's going to be  shocking so prepare yourself  ready?
Umm I guess this hamster replied .

Guys are all ***** ******* .
Really no **** Sherlock she replied .

Hey look sure some dudes can be nice and not act all weird but duh there probably gay .
I mean yeah writing sights should be about writing but duh who cares about art if you can get laid let me tell you the reason I became a writer.

I wasn't good at sports and I cant dance worth a **** okay  so if I make chicks think I'm deep them maybe I can get to see there ******* and ******* are ******* awesome okay .

Are ******* twelve this unnamed hamster asked me as she kicked back another shot of Jack Daniels .
Mentally maybe I replied but honestly what is age but a marker to say hey your to old to date this person or for people put you in prison for there judgment of your unconventional lifestyle .

You are one strange man Gonzo but at least your honest .
yeah I know its one of my biggest flaws other than that I'm ******* awesome well I mean besides the drinking pills and other pending cases all of which  I'm not guilty well kinda.

We laughed we joked and when she wasn't looking I looked down her shirt yes it was a awesome night .
Well until she caught me and hit me with a beer bottle .

The night flew and so did are conversation .
You know gonz your really not half as much a pervert as people think you are .
Yeah I know don't tell anyone I have a bad reputation to uphold .

The hamster laughed and my goal was reached cause at the end of the evening I'm a joker and a pervert bartender but even I know how to treat people and I don't treat a writing site like hookup .com cause if I want to get laid I will do it the old fashioned way pay for it.

The hamster went on her way and once again I was left to work on my misspelled scribbling's and to look up freaky **** on the internet .
really what else a internet connection for?

Until next time stay crazy Kids .

Gonzo

A line cook at Denny’s (must have own pans)
Is an artist, accomplished in assemblage
Compositions of eggs (rather like Cezanne’s)
Toast, bacon, waffles for his decoupage

His gesso is the window layered in steam
Built of reflections and condensation
Hinting at the flowing Interstate stream
Beyond the No Smoking pumping station

The line cook has indeed his pans and plans -
Art, as the muse of cookery commands

Cindy Used-to-be-Wilks-Now-Prine-Again
pulled a hammer from the intersection
of *** crack and belt line,
and proceeded to air out
the passenger-side window
of her in-laws Suburban.

She dropped the parcel in the
captain chair and ran back up the
driveway to the soundtrack of a
whiny car alarm.

By the time the master bedroom's light lit,
she was turning the car's ignition.

She made a beeline for the Children's Funhouse,
just under the skirt of Oklahoma City.
Blanketed by a dense tree line, the red and yellow
chipped, wooden building was thought
by most interstate nomads as an ancient eyesore.

She parked at McGowan's Store, bought a 30-pack of 'Stones and
a pack of red 100s.
Cindy ran across the lulling interstate to the Children's Funhouse.

Walked in the backdoor beaming,
"Hello ladies! Anybody want a drink?" she said to the room
full of workers.

The women of Children's Funhouse sported an image
that anyone could guess, as long as they knew
the place to be a middle-classy truck stop brothel.

After a chorus of I-do, I-do's, Cindy began tossing beers
to freckled ladies, decked in frilly skirts, saddle shoes, bobby socks,
and more often than not--pigtails.

Chung-Ae Phun, the madame, walked up behind Cindy,
tapped her on the shoulder and the two embraced warmly.
"Hey Mama," Cindy said.

"Oh, Cindy Lilly, it's so good to see you!
You picked a wonderful night to make your
prodigal return. Looks like a lot of business tonight."

"I could certainly use the money."

"Is four okay?"

"I'll take as many as you can send my way."

"That's the spirit darling. I want you to take
the Candy Corn Suite."

"I'd be honored, Mama."

Chung-Ae Phun established a fine business.
On Mondays she treated the local law enforcement,
on Sundays the district judge, and every other day
weary truckers came in to find solace.
Only special guests were treated to "special" girls
in the Candy Corn Suite.
The orange and white checkered carpet, the yellow walls,
radiated an eerie invitation.

"Let me get your outfit ready,
if you'd like you can wait in the room" Phun said.

Cindy Prine moved the stuffed bunnies and bears,
and planted on the bed.
Freedom rang like the Liberty Bell in her small skull.
Few of God's creatures ever held as much original
joy in their bones as Cindy Prine.
She could turn tundra to beachfront with a smile.

Chung-Ae Phun knocked on the door and entered,
setting a white and pink polka dot dress on the edge of
the bed.

"Your first client is a friend of a friend. Terrible gut,
smells like an ocean of whiskey, but seems nice enough."

"What's his name," Cindy asked.

"Hank."

"Send him in."

Cindy slid into the dress,
quickly pounded a beer,
heard a rapid, eager knock on the door.

"C'mon" Cindy chimed.

"Well, gawd ****, baby girl. Looks like you've been real bad."

Cindy rolled her eyes.

"I sure have. I can't find my ******* anywhere.
Will you help me look, Hank?"

Abigail slides the glass door shut.
As beads of water percolate off her body
and land on the faux stone tile,
the smell of chlorine from her swim
and the smell of coffee from my brewing *** blend.
My uncle, Abigail's father, and my mother
are seated at the sticky, spilt soda kitchen table beside me.
"Go get ready for dinner," my mother's brother says, sending
Abigail's bikini'd frame through doorway and around the bend.
The brew idles, and I'm all porcelain and sugar substitute for a moment,
then back by my uncle and mother.

"Abigail has gotten so thin," my mother says.

"Is she eating?" my mother asks.

"I know it's tough for girls her age. When they're looking to marry," my mother says.
I want to bash the smoking cup into her face.

My uncle says she's been training for a marathon.
My neurons get tidy and taper off.
So, it's out of the kitchen and into an empty living room
to park my *** on an empty piano bench.
I set the coffee on top, and press eight of my fingers down
on black keys.
I hear toes-to-heels, toes-to-heels.
I gaze over my shoulder.
Now, Abigail's in a black, black dress. Mid-thigh.
In her left hand,
red ****-me-shoes with a heel that could turn a curious man blind;
in her right hand,
black pantyhose and cherry lipgloss.
"You should have swam," Abigail delivers with hushed precision,
like she'd been reciting the line throughout the duration of her swim.

Abigail has long brunette hair,
and it's sticking to her neck.
Deep permanent dimples frame her lips.
She's a nurse in Waco.
Each time I see her, I think about
Bukowski's 103-pound "Texan".
It makes me rash, violent, a heady monstrosity,
and trembling sick.

"I forgot my trunks."

"That's no excuse."

I would respond, but she's sliding the hose up her leg.

In the living room.

While my uncle talks a second mortgage around the bend.

Her right leg crosses her left,
an overpass and an interstate.
My forehead overheats in a flash,
and I feel like she's staring back at me.
When my leering eyes shift from
her toes to her eyes, the pupils beckon:

"All roads lead to me."

Quiet morning.
Successful surgery.

No tv!
Watch weather.

Do nothing.
Be nameless.

Suppose cows.
Scare crows.

Harmless habits.
Armless robot.

Like a delusion.
A late night movie.

Expect to forget
and be forgotten. Information.

Interstate.
Toilet seat.

How soon after cryogenesis
can one cry or *******?

C'mon out to the rattled caves
the deep-sea malaise
rested in the grey metamorphs
of an ancient coastal chain

Where Sisyphean slips of tectonic rifts
pull the molding clay
like play-dough
and old rock that turns anew
churned into
great catacomb stele
Babylonian towers far away
from the great
Mesopotamic
interstate

Surrounded by the immumerous trees
the military sharpness of their pine
quills writing their mark in the dirt
for a hundred turns or so
only to be rearranged
into the great intercontinental soil
Truly
multisolipsistual

And on the aggregate
held open the mists
of the vast expanse of ocean
beyond L.A
and stole the fruits of the tiny parceled condominium rainwater
from distance far away
angry men shouting--
"Give us back our life blood, ******* YOU!"

Filling the tanks of their fleshomobiles
running around and sweating it out
trading it for cloth and wiping their brow on
brown shirts
perturbed and disobeyed

But that great man with the chin muscatche
brought the rough riders out of their dome
into the frontier, riding trains
Off they go!
Seeking paradise in the sands
and the trees
and the coastal breeze
dreaming
of a world owned and seen
by the world
by man
and by all these things

It would be grand

But that rock has been seen before
in Luarentian islands long ago
or perhaps a great FUJI-SAN of the west coast
worshiped by critters and dinosaurs
You are late to the game, sweet dreamers, you!
These monuments give to honor due
not you,
no sir did you build these things?
did you mold these things
with the patience of a father
with the consequentiality
of the womb
and a motherly affection
for all things true?
the gift is for you,
remember your father's gifts
sweet princes of the earth
because they will outlive you.





And I walk along the stream
stepping upon these little bits of Yosemite
Pulverized mountain rocks
Renal Stones of the diseased
to which the water flushed out deeply
and cured the grey things from all that left them
displeased
hoping for more than just selfies
and sticking it to god's face
laughing at half-dome
climbing it and getting the better of ourselves
Believing we have achieved bliss

When in reality,
there is nothing to this which we can reach.

The Banshee screamed
a song of sirens, chasing us down
the scenic route, out of a state
filled with grape vines laden
with last year’s shriveled raisins,
and lake shores made of unrefined gravel
and severed ******’s feet.

Her shriek descended
on the windshield, a shower
of arrows off of a warring
edifice and the wind whipped
them in torrents, sewing a shredded dress
for her raging and thunderstruck body.

We were sun-burnt
and laughing, at two ponies
jumping 4ft fences and the twenty
turkey vultures circling
a mating ground made of a tree carcass
filled with nests and courting rituals.

The tolls to cross
the border were left way past
the back seat. So we soon forgot
about rain-washed vineyards
and houses filled to the brim
with empty birdcages
and broken porcelain dolls.

And as she drove,
my friend said that one
of our tires was grinding
and that we were 300 miles past
an oil change. But the Banshee
soon lost to the lake
and drown with the rest
of her drunken, scurvy sailors.

I just want to go 200 on the interstate
and see if the world still wants me

My skill is wasted on slowness
Underappreciated and mistaken for arrogance

Behind the wheel I am confirmed
Decisions here are not the customs of monotony

But a nuanced puzzle of physics
I am a navigator in an ocean of outcomes

The engine is roaring with me
We were made for exploding

Just hanging around stuck in the background where Echo and the Bunnymen sing sad songs,they're not funny men and I'm not one too.
Going to take my Queen and fulfill a dream,dine in style at Mile End,wend my way down to Nandos,pay for chicken,sticking less to the plan because I'm only a man I travel to Hackney where the wild men of Shoreditch come out to attack me with rolled up newspapers,their capers amuse me until I blink twice, and I see, that my Queens seen it all and goes off in a huff,
Puffs of smoke are no joke when you're born as a bloke because the magic don't last,blast it nearly passed it,the turn off for middle age,junction twenty six on the revolving glass mirrored stage,but I made it and now I'm back in the sun waiting for my Queen to come,my apology accepted along with the promise of a day trip to Poundland,stand and deliver while we shiver our timbers and limber up for the party on interstate four,
sore from the laughter we take a bath shortly after because we like to stay clean,my Queen thinks I'm ***** and men go that way after thirty but I'm not so sure.
I have pure intentions and clean underwear,does she care? I think so but it's so hard to know what she's thinking,she tastes of melons when I'm drinking her in.
In this flotilla where the will of the one doesn't win,we all stick together, whether it's a good thing or not,
but I've got a plan and because I'm only a man it's a good one and so I carry on and she carries me,I meet her mum and she marries me..sounding obscene,I mean I married my Queen,not her mum.

It's all in the spaghetti which I'm sure that SHY YETI'S BEST OF BRITISH - PART 1 doesn't cover,so it won't keep me warm but no harm in me looking through this facebook and cooking a dish,should I wish, for some it's back to interstate four,where the cops will be waiting with a ticket to the potteries and a fine for the finder of the stopped timex watch winder.

where was I
in Mile end?
yes,
going to spend but stay lean as I talk with my Queen,
and so it goes on.

Former hotels and restaurants sit like tomatoes dying on the vine ...
Filling stations are like ghost on this highway , long abandoned but still
advertising ... Empty shells line State Route 29 , Hwy. 42 and 41 for many miles , old wood barns with ' See Rock City ' still visible from the roadside , ancient billboards rusting , antique tractors frozen and left to die , once busy , vibrant thoroughfares now have a car or two once in awhile ..  Antique stores and tourist stops that sold peaches , muscadines and pecans plus other southern treats make eerie noises now with no folks left to visit ..
Owners left to query their insignificance , boarded establishments flapping in the wind , gutted homes now prisoners of rain and the elements , grass struggles , breaking free from it's asphalt jailer , barbed wire fence shredded , no trespassing signs laying beside silent roadways ... What terror befell the people when the interstate claimed her prize , what alternatives were available during theses harrowing times ...

Today,
John took off his sunglasses
But left on his hat,
As he smiled at the lady behind the
Counter at the motel.
She had a beehive hair-do, he noticed,
Two feet tall and yellow,
But he didn’t say anything.
She smiled back, slid a key to him,
Told him, “Room 303”.

Yesterday,
John put on his sunglasses,
And stopped at the screen door,
Reaching up for his hat.
It was sunny yet windy,
And he planned to be rebellious.
Windows down, top speed,
No destination,
He drove.

In 1987,
John met a lady named Clara,
And fell in love with the way
She served him coffee and pecan pie
In that old greasy spoon,
Built inside an old railroad car,
Which sat beside the river’s shore
Out on Interstate 24.
She had a yellow beehive
That was twenty years out of time,
And she could have been out of her mind,
But she knew how to smile,
To drive a lonely man wild-
But how she refilled his coffee for free,
Without a doubt, was his favorite part-
She seemed to just dive right through
The hotness and steam, straight into his heart.

In 1991,
John and Clara got married.
She had one of those tiny, white,
Lace-covered cowboy hats that matched her dress.
It clung to her climbing hair, and
Tiny leaves and babies’ breath were everywhere.
Why those hats were ever in style, he never knew,
But he said nothing, because
Her sister wore one too.
They smiled for the pictures,
She held up her heavy dress.
They held hands and waved,
Before climbing into
John’s beat-up Cabriolet-
In love, driving away.

Now it’s
Eighteen years,
Eighteen excuses
To try to hang onto the past.
John liked to close his eyes sometimes, and
Picture her: pink apron,
Arms loaded with plates of food.
Meatloaf, mashed potatoes,
Every kind of bean:
Red, black, pinto, kidney and green;
Number one was the free coffee,
Or was that reason eighteen?

Yesterday,
John put on his sunglasses,
And stopped at the screen door,
Reaching up for his hat.
It was sunny yet windy,
And he planned to be rebellious.
Windows down, top speed,
No destination,
He drove.
He drove until he passed
The sister’s house in which
His Clara now lived,
The cowboy hats, like their love,
Forgotten and gone.
In a different town in a different world,
He drove into a tiny motel parking lot,
Not paying attention to
Whether he was okay with
Moving on or not.

Today,
John took off his sunglasses
But left on his hat,
As he smiled at the lady behind the
Counter at the motel.
She had a beehive hair-do, he noticed,
Two feet tall and yellow,
But he didn’t say anything.
She smiled back, slid a key to him,
Told him, “Room 303”.
But before he went,
Ready for rest, dying to sleep,
Perchance to dream
Of anything but what happened to
Half his life in Chattanooga, Tennessee…
He took in her friendly eyes,
Mysterious style,
Warm smile.
And John couldn’t help it,
He felt delighted when she said:
“The coffee in the morning
Costs a dollar-forty-three.
But I like your sunglasses,
And you seem alright by me…
So I may just pour you a cup for free.”

What I remember most is the ghost I left in the North that day
And how you agreed to drive--I almost didn't believe it
Not only not my body but not my soul, so what better an anchor?
Not my home and not my world--what better an anchor?

I-5 South to 405 driving like nothing, but leaving a smoke trail
S.O.S. outbound in denial with no signal return
Smiling beside the driver unknowingly burning, unknowingly smoking out

Could you respectfully decline an offer to wipe your feet clean at the door?
Outbound there's nothing that changes but the fear inset and instilled
It's just a portal
Could you respectfully decline an opening to escape with your devils moored?
Outbound it's better than ever if you'll accept it's not running away
Doorways are just portals