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Carter Monroe |
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the scatological sun and i'm thinking of "live at the village vanguard" "'round midnight" my favorite song of all time the quintessential monk mantra and it leads me in multiple directions both catastrophic and enigmatic with beer and cigarettes no head meds in sight no caution to the wind no serendipity'd sterilization i won't see the moon until the first piss break when i hit the front stoop for a smoke and a few coughs the heat will still be stifling in this castrated berg of banality when i first find sleep this day the humid remnants of another 24 will find my skin for the last time when i beg for its return delbert mcClinton in the afternoon mail i get wasted and listen to "b movie boxcar blues" eleven times in a 1992 lincoln town car parked, of course i'm bobbing and weaving like my old self impervious to time and surroundings "rocking out" we used to call it when the beer runs dry i open my eyes my ten year old niece is outside the car digging the music even though the windows are closed and dancing in her own little fourth grade way smiling and looking for reassurance (or is that merely attention) "who is that" she asks "it ain't clay aiken, that's for damned sure" i reply she pokes out her bottom lip and runs to her mother i laugh like hell and walk to mine friday before the buzz intensity's a hardcore lenient albatross unyielding in a self-preservation kind of ambience for starters, i'm cold on a 90 degree day when fogged windows decorate this studio had to put my shirttail back in to keep my pants from falling to think that such can happen when one drinks 12+ beers a day i'm begging for something a smile, perhaps a new feeling or an old would someone call it a second chance the birds perch on the trees of my youth and i'm thinking air rifles, pellet or bb big game blue jays even a sliding cottontail on the ice "just don't kill a cardinal it's the state bird" what a challenge it was to obey such a dictum but the trees are mammoth now taller than tall a shotgun might not be enough and my eyes are too bad for rifles can't crawl on my belly i've lost the patience to stalk could never make it aiming one inch to the left oh, for the days when a sparrow was big game another beer and time . . . my mother needs directions to an out of town church she doesn't understand that you have all these unnecessary turns when procuring same from the internet my last free saturday approaches five months of not having done well in school the lifelong penance for the irresponsible i guess the money's good, but not great mom wants to go see my niece in bible drill wants to be there for her and for my baby sister who weighs 300 lbs. and doesn't get out much i have a dream living in chicago a girl - a woman who's right for me or would be if i had kosher hot dogs, cream cheese, bagels, and foreign crap the can is almost empty as the sun wanes (along with me) think i'll get another and a cracker and some diet peanut butter the kinda stuff you eat for whatever reason when you're lost tell me, jack was the free whiskey worth it was it right to move back to lowell and finish yourself off with pats on the back and the, "yeah i know him" syndrome was it worth it when your guts exploded tell me now, so i'll know don't leave me in the dark i need to understand the end of the road just as i understood the beginning i need somehow to figure out if dying is ok ranting at the deity you had to do it you divine intervention motherfucker wherever you are had to squelch my imagination and bring love into the equation had to take the dead and resurrect it as some seemingly stoic pontificator who'd be better off in a sports metaphor or some such they probably have pills for this but fuck doctors they want you to quit drinking and eat smaller portions want you to live by a different set of rules goddamn! can't you understand the age of my body the wistfulness of my mind the fact that i was comfortable living out the string proverbs suck like homespun remedies just another cliché to brighten your day so to speak just a squalid attempt to inject the humor of fate banshee, release me let me go back to the swirl let me make verbal vomit that invokes ambiguity and suggests nothing but line and some semblance of language let me find my crack in the diatonic scale as such achieving scant moments of satisfaction and occasional drunken smiles convince me once more that i live the poem that's all that matters really it is |