flight time again, west bound
as dharma trails unfold ahead
trek trek treking
hitching and hiking through
fields of green and gold
and down black highways, byways,
and taking me to Old San Fran
across the land alone
alive ablaze
nightfall finds me lying
under the dancing stars
under that one o’clock moon
dreaming of the days of
wine and Kerouac
they are upon us once again
then as day breaks
forging forward I go
onward toward the bright lights
night lights of red and blue
the flashing neon city is alive
arriving at last
feet fat, tired and aching
as Jack’s ghost comes to my
side, whispers
“I’ve been here before”
and as my journey ends
I realize it is only
just the beginning
was the whiskey and the jazz playing
On too many black nights with too
Many lonely women and not a poem
Between them
How many times can you run
From the shadow of the voices that
Surround you
Beating like drums in the darkness
Tasting more of your flesh each time
Not leaving enough for a man to breathe
No way for a man to live
How could the hep-cat jive survive
When my voice can only spit silence
Wasn't a dream left to filter thru
The night worn inside and out and
Bled dry a bottle singing the page blank and life in the hands of
the haves laughing at the broken shadows of the have-nots
There was a club on 34th and Second Ave where the jazzman
swung
All night long beat poets recited Tuesdays' nights and Jack was
always drunk in the third booth
Scrawling poems on paper bags and notebooks
Taking life hard on the chin and after a while not fighting back
anymore
Ain't the road thzt donev Jack in
Four beige walls
Streaked with yellow tar
Of too many smokes
Kerouac waiting with Brautigan on shelf
Once the mongrel beat
Long forgotten
And the jazz plays cymbals taps flare
Chaka boom chaka boom chaka boom
While 88's like crystal wail
To the beat baby babe
To the beat
On the road to desolation
The vision spoke
Looking through doorways at mountains
The jack,man, the jack
Had this feel,ya'know
This running flow like jazz
Keeps coming alive
Chaka boom
Can't you feel it
Miles swings down dig
Walls that stain the darkness
THE TOKYO-MONTANA EXPRESS
We're all up on desolation
Lookin' down
After twilight around that corner
City Lights show an alternative way
Sipping sour whiskey from chipped cups
In low sweaty cellars where frothy cats play
Shades under tilted black beat berry hats
And Charlie's beat sounds out over his steady rap
Snyder slumps iodine in the doorway queue
Waiting for a tired Bird's wings to flap
Onstage another rhythmic rant from Jack
Sets shapely dark stockinged table legs to tap
Smoke haze from unfiltered thin street rolls
As cool closed eyes dig that lonely wail horn blow
All youth Zen style sharing jazz and blues
And I'm thinking
We gotta go and make our own poems Babe
Cause I always want to- anywhere with you
I am thinking of you, Kerouac.
As I always do
when the leaves start to fall,
For that’s when I first fell for you
many years ago.
You lit my fire and spit me into myself, ready to tackle
Each branch of myself.
Aching to view each night through a poet’s eye,
And connect the dots uniquely under the violet sky.
Oh kerouac, please, you know you’re the reason
For my slacks and my oxfords and my cigarettes.
You’re the reason I chase, the reason I search
For a worn out America all covered in dust.
Breathe you in with the tea I smoke, sip you up
Desperately like gas station wine,
Flipping through your pages like I’ve run out of time.
You’ve been with me here and you’ve been with me there
to aid me in scoping out the strange and bizarre.
Though I never met you I feel like I did
Sweet Jack my boy, I am sending you kisses and wishes
From the living to the dead.
My Kerouac heart attacks
In illustrious cigar smoke stacks
Against time, Wake up to talk,
To speak, Unknown for hours
Amidst your wilting sunflowers
Let's talk nonsense prose
Where death kills,
Love, at last, grows
My Ginsberg snowflake cries Howls
With Wolfbane growls
At my Kerouac heart
seven below zero
silent angels
cold prayers
darkness falls on snow
fumbling
for my keys
metrodome cave-in
vikings lose their home
pillage detroit town
frost-bit
mountain climbing
your forgotten love
windblown snow
covers my tracks
am I here?
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