**********
Wires and Concrete
I’ve got twenty dollars
and no emotional attachment
to my age and whether or not
I should be ready for my thirties.
I vote we just go ahead
and take a cab for those last ten miles.
What the hell,
it’s late, for one thing. Those streetlights
are getting introspective
and suicidal
two at a time.
They’re just waiting for me
to dig myself a little deeper.
I’ve been an asshole and a yes-man-embarrassment all night.
It’s going to be hard to talk to some of these people later on.
So, let’s just hail down a cab. I’ve seen approximately
six hundred drive by in the last eight seconds. I’ll pay for the whole thing.
I’ll throw the money at him like a big shot
and swear—as though religion is on the line—that he can keep the change.
I’ll keep my hands to myself
and let you do all the talking.
We’ve never been in love before,
and I can guarantee that there’s no chance of that happening now.
There’s still a lot you haven’t told me.
The best movie of the last ten years
or how many times you managed to fall in love
before you even got to your twelfth birthday
with a car crash, a terrible haircut and breasts that came in
two years much too soon.
You haven’t told me what it was like to see Tokyo
from an expensive hotel room that your dad
wouldn’t let you leave because you were only eight years old.
I’m honestly interested. I promise to remember
everything you tell me once it’s been a decade
since the last time we bumped into each other
and caught up on all the things we’re tired of talking about.
It’s amazing,astonishing
how much you can talk about
with two minutes and a thousand people
who don’t care if they get in your way.
Downright uncomfortable
is how it’s gonna roll when all those streetlights
go out. When there’s nothing left to trust
but our real ages and how well we can walk
with the help of those cars that don’t give a damn
if we’re trying to gather our thoughts.
I also don’t like that there’s so many old friends
who haven’t gone to bed yet.
I say we just take a cab.
**********
Seven Types of Weather
New Mexico was always one hell
of a good live show at night. Especially
when you were twenty-five miles out of Santa Fe
and could only trust the headlights of the truck
but so much to get you back towards the heartbeat.
It might have been thirty-five miles.
We might have actually been coming back
all the way from El Paso.
The last couple of hours were not
to be trusted. They could somehow go
backwards like bedlam Broadway dancers
and then just as quickly appear a mile up the road
as though they had been there the entire time.
Everything was stop-and-go back then.
As many backwards and forwards memories
as you could fit into that damn huge sky.
It was a six a.m. understanding of the infinite
that always got us out of bed by five.
I remember
very clearly
thinking about the sky
while your father drove us back to Santa Fe
and did almost all of the talking.
I was listening intently. He spoke in a clear,
steady voice about working at a hotel
and meeting Gene Hackman.
I was paying attention. You were sitting
between us with your hands in your lap
and had certainly written your fifth poem of the hour.
You never,
ever stopped writing.
Your best work was in the little things
that made up the hometown you didn’t really appreciate.
Those brilliant acts of compassion
that never amounted to more than one or two lines.
Napkins and matchbooks always appreciated
your “angel of mercy” approach
and the way you never left them at home.
I was scheduled to learn all about it
the hard way. Six months down that line
of fresh, white paint that disappears
as soon as you get your confidence back.
I didn’t know it at the time. I really didn’t.
My spirits were arrogant.
It was completely of their own free will.
I even looked good in the jacket you bought
for me that at the Christian fundamentalist flea market.
The one where the woman in charge
was spitting out teeth
every time
she yelled and how there were ten palm readers
for every lonesome tourist.
A lot of that stuff was running through my head
as we drove home and looked awfully funny
being the brightest thing for dozens of dark miles.
But mostly,
I was just wondering if your father
was in any way wondering what we got up to
when you were showing me all of those
little mountains
and spectacular views outside his house.
He probably had an idea.
He certainly wasn’t stupid.
**********
Promises and Big Money
He remembers the history of airports
as he’s seen them from Vancouver
to that broke-down shack
that’s known as Norfolk International.
He remembers speeding through the one in Chicago
and trying to catch a look at that beautiful college girl
who was leaving for Berlin to meet her fiancé.
People were still going to the video arcades
that were usually next to the food court.
That’s how long ago it was.
He still remembers,
and still knows that he can go back home
anytime.
Nothing back there is waiting.
His old friends weren’t really friends to start with.
Anyone who says otherwise will be too busy
getting ready for Monday morning to stand up and be counted.
The old comic book shop sells good shoes.
The restaurant he used to go to with his mother
is just burned up real estate that no one wants.
Streets and houses now only familiar enough
to get on his second-to-last nerve.
He’ll have stories and memories to last me,
but no one’s going to want to hear about them.
He’ll be alone
through the whole art of starting over again.
He usually loves nothing more
than setting his bag down and sorting out
a thousand points of light over a cigarette,
but he doesn’t think he has it in him to try something like that.
At least,
not so far away from where he’s spent
the last ten years building up whatever it is
that’s kept him moving and more or less alive.
These last ten years have been hopeless,
extraordinary and unflinchingly strange.
He’s lost more than he’s started out with,
but it’s still been a hell of a lot of work.
He’d like to stick around a little while.
Get back into fighting shape and see
the rest of this ten thousand mile backyard
before he even thinks about going back
to the childhood parking lots and playgrounds.
And he’d to do all that
with her running a hand
along the back of his neck at the end of the day.
Needing her might be a weakness,
and He’ll admit to that if she’s willing
to just smile and nod when he tries out that ring on her again.
He can live out these nowhere times on his own,
but he’d much rather do it with her.
**********
Just Kidding
Way too much static between these songs.
Come to think of it,
there’s also entirely too much white noise
in the middle of each.
I should work on that.
I should make more of an effort to remember
the music that’s gotten me through
those elevator rides where anything might happen.
Those streetlights that are going to turn on me
no matter which way I think might lead to home.
I get lost all the time.
Rely on myself more than I should.
I’ve met people who have obviously
made some concerted effort to help.
I’m pretty helpless.
I still routinely get lost at the Greyhound station.
I’ve met good people,
and I’ve learned to pretend to be nothing less
than mystified that I only get to know them
for a short amount of time.
They just disappear.
Phone numbers change
and apartment complexes sink into the ground.
Like they never existed.
Those campfire stories that roll their eyes
because they have so much else to say
have been trying to hitchhike their way out of Interstate 95
for a lot longer than I’ve been here.
Even those stories been more reliable than the people
I’ve disappointed over and over again.
It’s terrible,
more or less my fault
and even worse
anytime I’m dumb enough to fall in love.
There’s all this stuff I should work on.
All kinds of self-improvement that should be ready
for whenever
someone trusts me, out there, in the world again.
But it can be hard when there’s so few people to talk to.
I just don’t think I’m an especially reliable judge
of everything that’s wrong with me.
I shouldn’t have to ask someone to come along
and help me get it all into writing,
but I think I may have to start keeping my eyes open.
Find someone with the patience of a saint
and then ask them if they’ve got a little more.
Work on keeping my stupid mouth shut
since so much of the trouble seems to start there.
I’ll do all the cooking
and never tell a single joke.
