Just when you think the barrage has stopped, just when you think the muse has vanished, just when you think I've retreated back into a quiet domain of normalcy and complacency in the face of a world gone mad, I reappear, if only for a moment. No ongoing rants this time- the weather's too nice for that- but here's a couple of Portland snapshots written in the last few weeks, one about the area around our house (which is going up for sale and we are going to make it to SE Portland this time!!!) and one about Old Town, and a little portrait.
All of this is fiction, of course, and any resemblance to characters real or imaginary is pure coincidence. Of course.
------------------
Maybe there's something in the middle of
the duck-filled pond, or maybe it's washed
downstream into Fanno Creek,
or maybe there's nothing but earnest imaginings
and someone who desperately wants to see
his own reflection
even as he runs past every mirror
and only fakes every emotion that
ever peeks out from eyes he
hardly uses anymore, anyhow,
but someone blew their own brains out
on the shores near that pond
just a few years ago
and a cokehead lawyer tried to run
from fire-grilled neighborhoods late
1970's Detroit,
and lost his mind anyway, became
nothing but a howling womanizing devil,
didn't even recognize it,
I thought he was reaching to me for
a line, maybe I tried to pull him up,
but I'm the one getting dragged
into this dead spiritual sinkhole,
barely holding on to the edge,
and I think there's a black hole
out in the nighttime, back there,
and the frogs scream out
trying to tell us all to stay away,
but at the same time,
their constant call hypnotizes
the seekers into tripping deep down a forever void.
------------------------------------------
Skid row junkies don't even get high anymore,
don't even look for another fix,
united only in their cowardice, afraid to end
it all with one overloaded blast
of whatever it is that got them there in
the first place.
They've spent all the excitement, fed their
minds to bursting with crazy utopian fantasies
and the narcotic spell of stopped time and fuck-all,
and now it's just day after day of the
same sidewalks, the same shit smells,
the same rat hair and
it just doesn't fucking matter anymore, does it?
It's the same gutter trap in Portland, Manchester,
Sheffield, Berlin, the final ash piles of
burned out lives and sick exhaustion
of the same dry fantasies,
dreams that they've all learned aren't
that good anyway, aren't what you'd
want to live in,
with shithead idiots following, looking for
a bit crumb of the genius
that they wouldn't know
how to handle
anyhow.
-------------------------------
And one more portrait....
------------------------
That was the spirit of Neal Cassady in the
lounge last Saturday night- what road
was he talking about,
ranting about the slow obstacles on the
highway, down to LA, maybe down
to a death beyond nothing,
"You gotta get out of the way!"
"You gotta keep moving!", "It's the
fucking highway!", "You gotta keep up!"
all the while his eyes start burning
the same way they did when we
crossed the top of Tejon Pass,
dropping into LA 95 miles an hour,
through a construction zone, dancing
by trucks and drivers who aren't
even in their cars, not even in their
bodies anymore,
already left for somewhere else, maybe
they're all just dead,
because I feel so fucking alive,
I felt every terror bump on that
road, saw every blocked car stopping
the highway
and I'll always trust the driver,
or at least I'll pretend to,
but I wonder if I'm just a gawker
stopped on some crazy overpass
because everyone else is going over
the unfinished end
and dying in flames at the bottom.
All of this is fiction, of course, and any resemblance to characters real or imaginary is pure coincidence. Of course.
------------------
Maybe there's something in the middle of
the duck-filled pond, or maybe it's washed
downstream into Fanno Creek,
or maybe there's nothing but earnest imaginings
and someone who desperately wants to see
his own reflection
even as he runs past every mirror
and only fakes every emotion that
ever peeks out from eyes he
hardly uses anymore, anyhow,
but someone blew their own brains out
on the shores near that pond
just a few years ago
and a cokehead lawyer tried to run
from fire-grilled neighborhoods late
1970's Detroit,
and lost his mind anyway, became
nothing but a howling womanizing devil,
didn't even recognize it,
I thought he was reaching to me for
a line, maybe I tried to pull him up,
but I'm the one getting dragged
into this dead spiritual sinkhole,
barely holding on to the edge,
and I think there's a black hole
out in the nighttime, back there,
and the frogs scream out
trying to tell us all to stay away,
but at the same time,
their constant call hypnotizes
the seekers into tripping deep down a forever void.
------------------------------
Skid row junkies don't even get high anymore,
don't even look for another fix,
united only in their cowardice, afraid to end
it all with one overloaded blast
of whatever it is that got them there in
the first place.
They've spent all the excitement, fed their
minds to bursting with crazy utopian fantasies
and the narcotic spell of stopped time and fuck-all,
and now it's just day after day of the
same sidewalks, the same shit smells,
the same rat hair and
it just doesn't fucking matter anymore, does it?
It's the same gutter trap in Portland, Manchester,
Sheffield, Berlin, the final ash piles of
burned out lives and sick exhaustion
of the same dry fantasies,
dreams that they've all learned aren't
that good anyway, aren't what you'd
want to live in,
with shithead idiots following, looking for
a bit crumb of the genius
that they wouldn't know
how to handle
anyhow.
-------------------------------
And one more portrait....
------------------------
That was the spirit of Neal Cassady in the
lounge last Saturday night- what road
was he talking about,
ranting about the slow obstacles on the
highway, down to LA, maybe down
to a death beyond nothing,
"You gotta get out of the way!"
"You gotta keep moving!", "It's the
fucking highway!", "You gotta keep up!"
all the while his eyes start burning
the same way they did when we
crossed the top of Tejon Pass,
dropping into LA 95 miles an hour,
through a construction zone, dancing
by trucks and drivers who aren't
even in their cars, not even in their
bodies anymore,
already left for somewhere else, maybe
they're all just dead,
because I feel so fucking alive,
I felt every terror bump on that
road, saw every blocked car stopping
the highway
and I'll always trust the driver,
or at least I'll pretend to,
but I wonder if I'm just a gawker
stopped on some crazy overpass
because everyone else is going over
the unfinished end
and dying in flames at the bottom.
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