Flight #177 / Seat #7C - where I'm bound/I have been released
the final part of the trilogy,
re broken lives,
some finalized,
some revitalized,
some, their score,
incomplete
~~~
on the road again,
crossing the continent,
from sea to shining sea,
from one set of Eastern grandkids,
off to see the wizardry
of the West Coast variety
six hours six minutes,
flying high time, weather's fine,
a voices inform us, that will be
our mutual time of peaceful co-existence,
on this particular traversée journey
I've done harder time,
30 years ++ with no parole,
except for poetic verse,
them words,
I learned to parlez-vous parlay
never been afeared of flying high,
even amidst the wickedest black pitch,
tar and feathered thick, which is all the
ovaltine shaped window of the
exterior world, cares to reveal
at thirty thousand feet
the oxygen level in the cabin,
as it usually does,
says hey!
feeling heady boy,
so get good, so get ready,
write us a poem, a new shiny toy,
another of your airborne verbal medley
I've got little upon
to expound,
currently limbo'd
tween fresh, death-revived,
past memories of imprisonment and release,
by the jailers of L'Ancien Régime
and
the soon to feel,
happy anticipation of
Frisco fresh young lives re-greeting us,
long distance visitors with joyous screams,
loud, clear and that may cut
the muddied gloom internal,
like a pair of welcoming,
gleeful, liberating scissors
my windowed widowed refraction,
directs my carpaccio-thin guise
to pierce onwards a well trod state of
deeper reflection
noting that we will soon be flying over
water poisoned Flint,
in the state of Michigan,
just missing by an inching,
Paul Simon's sung request,
his "all come to Saginaw" dare
yet, I don't know where I am,
though the course trajectory
pilot-officially programmed and set,
ticketed firect through to
San Francisco
nonetheless, my internal organs all feel lost,
misplaced and turned down around,
passing directly over cities heard of
and yet never seen or footed,
can I still claim to have been there?
same question differently couched,
providing this passenger's headache,
I was there, of this world,
for the almost forty years plus,
though I wasn't really present,
merely accounted for,
finally learning that "freedom"
is just another word
and though the Angel of Death,
scheduled, made a pre-flight pick up,
he left part of me behind
and on board,
to pick up after,
steward some of his and my
messes
the eyes, the brain, the whole noggin,
search for secret signs,
potent portents, turn indicators,
that this gloomy doom, cloud thicket,
this too shall pass,
this last shared repast of shards,
this,
my so long now song
an au revoir to
"sad eyed lady of the lowlands"
noting that I am outbound and seated,
on a bunch of lucky sevens, flight and seat,
could be my luck is youthful changing?
where I'm bound
I can't tell,
I'll let you know when I get there
when I know, how I'll know,
I don't know, maybe some
extrusion of new words will speak,
at landing time, a different voice,
where and when I'm bound,
that will cry out
"now unbound,
at last,
at last,
I have been released"**
~~~
2/11~12/2016
started while over the Great Lakes, Michigan, and Wisconsin;
completed over Tahoe, Carson City, & Sacramento
"With your childhood flames on your midnight rug,
And your Spanish manners and your mother's drugs,
And your cowboy mouth and your curfew plugs,
Who among them do you think could resist you?
Sad-eyed lady of the lowlands,
Where the sad-eyed prophet says that no man comes,
My warehouse eyes, my Arabian drums,
Should I leave them by your gate,
Or, sad-eyed lady, should I wait?
Oh, how could they ever mistake you?
They wished you'd accepted the blame for the farm,
But with the sea at your feet and the phony false alarm,
And with the child of a hoodlum wrapped up in your arms,
How could they ever, ever persuade you?
Sad-eyed lady of the lowlands,
Where the sad-eyed prophet says that no man comes,
My warehouse eyes, my Arabian drums,
Should I leave them by your gate,
Or, sad-eyed lady, should I wait?
With your sheet-metal memory of Cannery Row,
And your magazine-husband who one day
just had to go,
And your gentleness now, which you just can't help but show,
Who among them do you think would employ you?
Now you stand with your thief, you're on his parole
With your holy medallion which your fingertips fold,
And your saintlike face and your ghostlike soul,
Oh, who among them do you think could destroy you?
Sad-eyed lady of the lowlands,
Where the sad-eyed prophet says that no man comes,
My warehouse eyes, my Arabian drums,
Should I leave them by your gate,
Or, sad-eyed lady, should I wait?
Read more: Bob Dylan - Sad - Eyed Lady Of The Lowlands Lyrics | MetroLyrics