i want to go get myself indicted just so i can meet them -
you know , people like me - like a bunch of people like me
some who grew up in a nice house , after the
bulldozers had their way
sleep on something softer - wake up and watch the big ants
lined around a pepsi lake like the lions around the murk water hole - when the savanah's
waiting for rain
i'd love a knowing nod to be whatever tossed when
i stop a second and try to remember which car it was when
dad handed me the pound of buddha , and i
slipped it under the seat for him - didn't even feel like a big shot -
didn't even feel like an accomplice - never did meet anyone else who could roll a
perfect pin while driving so fast ../
i buckled up even though it wasn't the law yet -
he never told me to do anything when he was stoned -
when he was straight , he would just scream about how
coney island was before the newark riots ... they had riots there too - ruined everything,
til they fix it , like they've been going to ever since - filled my head with
the fury static when he was straight - scary fuck - wish i could remember
all the jokes he told me when he wasn't - he does too .....
it was the volkswagon , the car i mean
someone to compare - " my mother married a freakin' cowboy " -stories would probably
do me some favors i can't even appreciate right now - he taught me how to throw cards
into a hat from across the room - i thought i'd deal blackjack where he worked .
he had a lot of old country sayings that he'd use to try to get an upper hand in
bourbon fueled , spiraled debates
with us -
mom and i left without saying anything , i didn't want to deal cards anymore after
that - before we left though i got to see lightening hit the top of sunrise mountain
, had a friend who's mom was on oxygen in the living room - no furniture but a bed
with rails - he and i stole ashtrays from the casinos -
had a twenty second crush on a girl i met in the street -
walked a block and a bit with the prettiest girl who wasn't black until the pickups
slowed down and stared - we
got so scared of eachother - hope she remembers me too -
got back to NY , my friends asked me how vegas was -
i said it was cool , they laughed at how i talked now , but that
mostly went away
wouldn't mind breaking bread and laughing about opening birthday
cards hoping there was money inside to give the dentist for
root canals - i rode my bike there , he let me bring it in
fun filled room of funfilled guys talking about cancer , and their
dead brothers --
yeah that'd do me
i really wouldn't want to talk about all the valiums i had to watch
swallowed by my kid's mom or ex wife - or whatever the least
affectionate yet respectful term would be used for going into
the whole sick fucking brain scrambling irish bitch i used
to call my wife . she took them when she wasn't pretty ,
and i wasn't funny - she takes them still
wouldn't want to talk about it , but i'd love a room full of people who could ......
but don't
do the where were you's when you smelled the stench like a million
rats died in the water , washed up and swelled in the sun -
see.... they tried to wash away the asbestos - those towers
were filled with it .... but it wet the bodies .... and made that smell - they poured
so much water downtown -
on sept. 18th when the subway doors opened at rector street ,
it wooshed in like a backdraft of death , on sept. 19th the doors
opened to the industrial deodorant they used to flood the tunnels -
you could still catch it though -
it rained three days after gettysberg , a lot ... and i know what it smelled like
four days after that - i get hit with it over again when i see footage of the collapse ,
or when i watch civil war documentaries , or when the rats wash
up on the rocks
god , there's so much i want to talk about , with just a few people
just like me - i'm not trying to be special ... just specific
it's not pain quotient , or comparison .... i don't rate - i had
it easy , and no one is happier than me right now
it's just that when all your old friends who knew you when ,
have opted out or killed themselves - alive or dead - when the
beer washed memories don't match - you don't bother
i'm here , and i'm okay - i've a room with a view and everybody
is right now
but it's like i can't see behind me - and maybe a jury of my peers
could tell me how i got here
and tell me where i'm going -
everyone i ever knew is a junky to something -
why , oh why ... aren't i ?
Link to the author: http://www.darkpoetry.com/node/work/28853
