Why Last night saved my generation

We are the generation to end all generations. Children of a blind Cicero, anguish detracted shells for corporate impregnation. Honest expression of our repression is reflected in our Ipods, our primitive obsession with formless function, our acute lack of serendipity in the face of an ever complex cosmic now.

 

Last night I saw a small glitch in the matrix. A broad baby ripple that spread across the enormity of our value laden space-time mesh. It was as if a baton had been handed to the last human on earth – and the race was necessary not for our survival but for our ontological vindication. After almost 40 years – the hopes, the dreams, the cynical formalism was washed away in November rain.

 

And I was there. In the middle of it all – within this hallowed cocoon of self denial that lay dying on DCs sidewalks – was our generation – in the throes of its political legitimacy- awkward and scared – ruminating on the promethean burden of our lack of identity. As the fractured veins of the military-industrial complex bled dry in front of our eyes – we were enveloped by a festival – One that we had crafted from the hesitant whispers that had started this revolution.

 

And we walked through the “negro streets of dawn” clutching each others dreams with more pain than our reckless lives could justify – with more love than our asphalt promenades could withstand . Like prophets of an era that had begun the day we were born.

 

From K street to the White house, from Mount Pleasant to the capitol – we walked as if this was the first day of the rest of our lives – We became our own salvation. In our songs of freedom, was the sublime nakedness – the nakedness of that final feeling that absolves you from everything.

 

And as the wave crashed over the organs of this great nation – I thought of that fateful day in 1963 when the reverend had talked in front of Lincoln. His voice has been steady and his arguments human – He had said “We have also come to this hallowed spot to remind America of the fierce urgency of Now”. He had spoken of a brave new world, one that needed more courage to live in than to build. As I looked at the spectacle around me I thought – Free at last, free at last , Thank god almighty we are free at last.

 

And all it took was a dark knight from an atrophying Midwestern city, whose rhetoric finally shattered forty years of social apathy and saved my generation. 

Part 3

Lamp shaded, mirth gored wonder-iffic-no-tragi-comic, love debacle of concession, under six feet worm fed top soil shit,

My inheritance is a washed up de-ranged, free-ranged anger fucked ball, thank you Mr. President, and I’ll send you that Christmas ham,

In search of Donald Shimoda, with ball-less eyes, and an un-bricked, un-pricked, yellow prostitute named Road,

As I watched in spring horror, the music-men licked off banked notes by-standers, and bi-standards were lost, or revoked, for familial hate-nik, a goading sick late-nik,

The prophet was cut up, with dead fillet knives, served over-easy, under-hard-lee-a word swallowed top, I danced cursive towards the last best of us,

Burnt, in my father’s uterus demands on chalk-a-bloc of erasers, window bright days buried, lopped off, sanguine-ed, re-skin-ed, pardon-ed, bent-in to – day.

Part 2

O U R, another alphabet souped damn head, as is the ‘snt , the farm-erred last year for better luck, marri-ed, hop-ed, collat-ed, somber-ed, dumber-ed,

The visiting plastic culture freak, succulent stalk wearing madams are wearing scout badges, honor speeches, mass murder shrined defunct lesbian want,

Its all for freedom from, and progress of, and elope with, racked in the E, R the twenty suicide notes, scars of sand monsters and troll eyed jams in Detroit,

Golden shiny cup for sons and lovers, and balanced tree wound up daylight lust, bikes on this highway, stray walked over pieces to carcass shaped truth bowls,

Sleeping drool faced under poundage of annual ringed circus treats is becoming, of, a race lined driveway to a better crop addition, within last years attrition,

And look whos back, the king on his phallic red-blue groove rocket, showing us worlds and broken children wrapped in old, dark, oil: perfect carnations and this great city…

Burnt

Part 1

The grotto under-privilege stained to fight thousand death battles, snake skinn-ed, often jake skinn-ed, loving vomit cake skinn-ed,

Flashes heard flight abounded, horse-shoed them away in mule packed carriages, cram-shocked, word-mocked, hard-rocked,

I am watching liver faced, a surrogate cocoon, questioned: gasped, clasped and grasped,

Shovel on brown sin, trudged over blue hills of virgin water, aspi-rationed two dreams a day,

Where is the generation I slept with? hedons-are-istically tearing off large bites: mustarded and layered, syndicated to players,

A song I paced with stale lunch hunger, marched away, sight poked, jerk-colored istant-mixed glory – the do it yourself god of temperance and …

All You Can Think Buffet

At the all you can think buffet,

I asked for more,

They stared me,

Twice down,

“There”.

And the bar opened often,

People gathered around hoping,

Notebooks open five,

New pencils,

Erasers.

Walking home down Nebraska avenue,

The city open for love-here and there,

And business hardly ,

Homeless dreams,

Off-key.

A new song for Kathy

“Let us be lovers we'll marry our fortunes together
I've got some real estate here in my bag
So we bought a pack of cigarettes and Mrs. Wagner pies
And we walked off to look for America…”

What was her name? The last summer letter to vinyl me,

Unwrapped in all I hadn’t done, wrinkled, wet and old.

The water pitcher in the prayer room was scented with incense,

Copper cold dried metal divinity, it prayed back at you.

“When you're weary, feeling small,
When tears are in your eyes, I will dry them all;
I'm on your side. When times get rough
And friends just can't be found…”

K lived next door, a thousand years away, a brother, two mothers and,

Me, jungle friends that stayed together for one afternoon,

Lovers with brown arms and burnt faces,

All these years, and he still dreams with me, summer clean, a decade of man.

“What a dream I had
Pressed in organdy
Clothed in crinoline
Of smoky burgundy
Softer than the rain…”

Old men don’t die; they become the house, and dark green well water,

And broken children smile bottled, and table legs which abort memory,

And calf deep placental laughter, and shattered brick dust, pregnant with crimson,

And the brown jute bag you vomit in, to hide from love.

“Tell her to make me a cambric shirt,
Parsley, sage, rosemary and thyme;
Without no seams nor needle work,
Then she’ll be a true love of mine…”

I saw her , in shallow bottom tear holders, drowning,

Smoking, rubbing the edge of her chair,

The room of silver fish, rape and grilled windows,

I came by often, in soft blue clutches of alphabet murmurs, alone and marked.

“April come she will
When streams are ripe and swelled with rain;
May, she will stay,
Resting in my arms again.”

In this last dance, all is gone, colored sari, white shame,

My shopping list : an old cousin, a curried prawn, five days with the natives,

Son, your teeth are blue, welcome to the vox populi,

Dark skin, servant language, deep fried ignorance for snack.

“Old friends, winter companions, the old men
Lost in their overcoats, waiting for the sunset
The sounds of the city sifting through trees
Settles like dust on the shoulders of the old friends…”

Panasonic, cliff Richards, evergreen tree, is this for sale ?

A well ridden rusted bicycle, and then again we had fish to inspect,

As the slave son, full of hope, made love to his trophy,

The cat ran away, that year – or maybe the year ran away with it.

“In the dangling conversation
And the superficial sighs
The borders of our lives”

Half over the drain, half in it, asked to enlist,

I don’t remember the number sir?

The last day to fly is now-then am I here to, stay,

Go, the birds left the banyan grove, I lost my legs there.

“Kathy, I'm lost," I said, though I knew she was sleeping
I'm empty and aching and I don't know why”

Rain, earnest is in the house, for the last act ,

In lieu of fear, he brings you tact,

My empty park bench near the school,

Flamed forest eyes, a double edged rule.

“And a song I was writing is left undone
I don't know why I spend my time
Writing songs I can't believe
With words that tear and strain to rhyme.”

That is when I walked out, plaid leaf covered,

Unwritten, unable and unsaid,

In new born darkness, and the music of,

Dry red earth.