Fugitive somehow can live under murky no dark water. cave back under the water. Hickory Hill and somehow i get caught. I'm not wet but muddy. a lot of cops around and I'm handcuffed. I'm led inside where ppl are standing around. I take off my coat and all of me is ***** except for my arms long sleeves that are yellow. Some female chuckles and exclaims something. I slip right back out of cuffs and noone seems to notice. I slip out the back door unnoticed and back into the pond and I back in to the small cave. Now they come back for me but know where I am. or maybe don't. I think they do or I really don't want to be there so next is close-up of my hands rising from dark brown water to surrender. Maybe this is how I originally surrendered. Later sitting around large table w/ 3 others and Craig K telling me something about how much better he is now that same time in his life is over. Maybe something similar to my sleeping minds problem.

Female is now the one in trouble. Not really pretty but not ugly. In a hospital after she was caught. Sterile room and she's wondering if it's better for her to run. Nurse/doctor orderly comes in he gets knocked out. she takes lab coat, walking by doctor while trying to be conspicuous with metal clipboard in hand. Reaches a stairwell and goes up it (the only way to go) where exit sign is. thinks maybe doctor alerted someone so we get nervous. Go out door to back of a smaller building green grass. large green electrical box parking lot to our left. should note she is talking to me but I'm in no danger. almost like I'm not physically there. we reach car and I ask b/c I'm sure she forgot key to car but she has it so we get in and she drives. She wanders if it would be better to give herself up instead of being on the lamb but says no and I'm happy bc, probably, of my last dream. I tell her about getting new identity and not using her credit cards and dream ends w/ me getting the sense she was never caught.

I

Under a hollow sky
grey worn concrete listens
scream of a solitary car.

“Just want to write something. anything. been too long. Mind, liquid pencil. You know.”

Jazz tickets on the dash.
(solo performer – no net over absurdity)

“Write about that..”

Street lamps recede infinitely
fathomless ether’s lost
slipstream of rust swallows all.

“See what he’s like first.”…”Your call.”

There’s a tug, a pull towards
the light and motion
the swirling abstraction
luminescent dance in glass and shadow
seeping out of brocades of steel and concrete

the city at night
night tides thick with colour.

“Empty road, inviting city. Very Kerouacian.”

Car screams a little louder.

The outskirts come into view.

II

Empty streets repeat in circle
asphalt constant self devouring.

Neon hums, street lamps chatter
sidewalk smoke ripples
reflections upon reflections.

Jazz tickets slide across the dash.

Chicken broth of ancient forever
rides night airs
long ago memories
fast filing seats, flavours upon flavours.

Logic abandoned
signs abandoned
knowing abandoned
we just follow the way.

Neon roar echoes in hollow factory caves
colourless flames abstract burn.

There, under the
Ashen Dragons gaze
empty seats, luck that can’t be passed up.

We eat noodles under starlight.

Ashen Dragon, indomitable
keeps flickering,
and flickering.

III

Stage lights roll.

Red light
hangs in dust.

In the hall, over the seats, over the stage.

Jazz tickets now stubs now becoming cranes.

Silence, bass ambles forth.
First steps turn into
stumbles, tumbles,
scrapes, hacks,
accumulation of mistakes
collective hang in red dust.

He tries everything. Arco, pizzicato,
bass as percussion – devoid thumps.

He’s patient though. Amidst the inferno,
there’s the sense, the knowing, he’ll find the way.

He stops. Stops seeking. Turns to sought.

IV (Musical Interlude)

A thread only he can see
faint, and fainter still gossamer.
bow swish arc, tentatively ensnared
dark enigma thread entwined among bow strings
a weave drawn into a screen
across the stage wall.

Abstractions start to turn into form.

Pizzicato dance
chips away,
immortal peaks of gleaming jade.

Arco slide
carves away,
innumerable valleys of shining emerald.

Tips and taps
river flows, duckweed and herons
hermit huts in forest and moss
troops of gibbons with melodious howls.

Tunings align with heavens changes
cherry blossoms bounce on singing winds
oriole songs drift through five willow forests
recluse paths swept clean of tumbled pine cones
pines rest under blankets of silent white.

Across the stage
crafted in pregnant emptiness
the ancient forever
in a down town dive.

Two cranes rest on a table.

V

Re-emergence under the
hollow sky.

“…there’s truth in abstraction.”

Ashen Dragon
still flickers.

Chicken broth
still lingers.

Empty seats,
still luck runs.

Noodles under starlight,
and sky grey caravans.

“Nice title…hanging around?”
“Catch the train back, gotta write this.”
“See you soon. Stay safe kid.”

Ashen eyes flicker
words clatter by under a neon gaze.

Bridges,

trains,
balloons, ships,
sails, colored glass, snow on the beach,
frozen water, words, language, music, subways,
typewriters, books, photographs,
swing sets, ink,
dust motes,

sunshine,
rain, snowflakes,
tunnels, streetcars, imagination,
memories, silence, sound, shadow puppets, candles,
flames, wax, communities,
comfortable situations, spiral staircases,
camaraderie,

old phones,
wire connections, written letters,
traveling, discovery, robots,
plants, flowers, clouds, grass, breeze,
shadows, running water, warm blankets,
bicycles, seasons,
change,

sunsets,
sunrises, the horizon,
mirrors, time, living without time,
living within space, living, breathing, seeing, hearing,
touching, tasting, smelling,
being reminded of something vague by a scent, poetry,
Kerouacian conversations,

abstractness,
friendship, love,
thoughts, beliefs, emotion,
movement, ages,
beginnings,

endings.

Kerouacian musings and thoughts
that drive the brain cells
       soul cells and heart cells
into a frenetic state.