cutting loose

(specialize in having fun – jim morrison)

 

got out of bed at eight tonight

took care of things till one a.m.

then made a beer run

before the liquor store closed

 

so many changes

i’ve been thinking of ending

my fourth dark streets of decay

collection of poems

send it off for publication

move on

 

but here i am

still walking

mp3 playing all six studio albums

by the doors

 

when i was at the liquor store

had a homeless man ask for money

i declined

i’ll buy a meal

not give money

 

he went to the atm

took out cash

bought an expensive bottle of brandy

i almost told him off

i’ve bought him a meal before

now i quote the raven

nevermore

 

lately

i’m not lonely

but i often think about

how nice it would be

to be inside a woman

 

it use to just come my way

on the dark streets of decay

but since that’s where i rarely play…

 

i hear jenny has banished my name

from being spoken in her presence

my problem is i live to write

and always try to find the liberty

that allows me

to live in my words

no matter the cost

we never got divorced

and i still send her money

 

i sometimes wonder

if i have actually written good poems

if future scholars will value my words

or dismiss my life’s work

because they view me as a loser jerk

like everyone else does now

 

anyways

just opened my third can

of twenty-four ounce beer

and i’m somewhere among the history

of sunset boulevard

looking for an alley where i can pee

they say this was a revolutionary place

in the sixties

but there is no longer a need

for youthful riots

over a ten p.m. curfew

 

this place has given up

on people like me

l.a. police don’t have a morality problem

they have a murder problem

and drunk in public poets

are way down on their list

of the leaking septic tanks

they need to plug

 

as i wrote that last line

the song, “l.a. woman” started

and now i’m dancing

every l.a. poet’s anthem

 

a couple days ago i was talking

to a young woman

she told me her favorite shows on netflix

the kind of shows you watch

with your children

i sensed such innocence and goodness

i didn’t tell her i am the author of

the dark streets of decay

and waited till i was around the corner

before i lit a cigarette

 

god, i haven’t written like this in awhile

i thought the dark streets of decay

was out of style

but sometimes even poets who don’t

believe in the truth

can lie to themselves

 

ugh, some people have been impressed

with my memory

and how i can quote words

from so many books

but i always seem to forget to eat

and now it’s late

and i’m not really in the mood

for an all night diner

 

ah, yes

let this poem meander as aimlessly

as my feet are right now

 

only have one can of beer left

but don’t you fret

my flask is full of peppermint schnapps

and i won’t be caught sober

at the advent of the first light of day

 

that is if i make it that far

and don’t end up spooning with a dumpster

in a back alley

an empty cardboard container of corona

as my pillow

 

i hate the matrimony of the mind

with ascendency

as if there is something to accomplish

pursue your goals

i’ll gnaw on coal

because i know

the only thing that will fuel the fire

is what you really desire

and not the alternative sources of energy

everyone says is better for everyone else

 

liberate yourself by passing through

the bowels of you mind

everything everyone says you should find

that you never wanted to locate

there are no tic tocs on any clock

that wasn’t created by man

to enforce their definition of joy or weeping

all this time keeping

is a ledger that violates an empty page

they don’t want you to fill

with the filament of your existence

unless you follow the proper course

of predicates and conjunctions

as they have defined

 

write your own line

without the pretense of what

everyone perceives as proper

 

god it feels good to be back

why do we let everyone else

define what we lack

as a liability?

 

i found a place to pee

and opened up my last can of beer

and in my ear

jim morrison is waiting for the sun

 

i’ve dialed a cab company

come take me to the sea

leave me on ocean ave.

this night will be complete

with a view

of what inhabits two-thirds

of our planet

that astronomers say isn’t done

because gravitational anomalies

indicate there is another planet

in our solar system beyond pluto

with five times the mass our earth

 

facts are only factual

till proven wrong

leaving us to be philosophical

 

i’d rather be whimsical

take off all my clothes

and dive into a wave

that’s concave

because it doesn’t question

the meaning of its existence

but we can never become one

because waves only exist to collapse

and then are gone

and all i can take away

is the salt it leaves on my skin

 

 i return to the shore and write in the sand

“it only matters if you believe it does

if you don’t understand this

you don’t understand anything”

 

the insignificance of your infinitesimal

is like the iridescence of a jellyfish

that deceives you with its beauty

until it stings you

 

until you learn everything is an illusion

and next time you perceive beauty

you should flee

 

because you will never know

until you know

nothing is attainment

 

***