c. 2024 Rod Ice
All rights reserved
(2-24)
Darkness drapes the yard outside
Framed by a string of clear lights, hung from the entryway
A finale for this winter day
A sign of persistent consciousness
Despite the hour
I lean backward in my office chair, pondering a quote offered to soothe
Hack writers on the move
Their newspaper careers crumbling like ancient temples in Greece
Hunter S. Thompson brought me peace
A wild vision comes as I reread his words for a hundredth time
Eyes peering between halves of the veil
Looking out from a netherworld
Imagined into being, composed of dreamscape vapors
That rise like fog just before the sun crests treetops
Arranged along the property line
I think of them as sentries on patrol
Sent to herd wandering souls
Arms at the ready
Guarding ghosts that linger over ground won in combat
And lost again, as generations evolved
Who remembers the railroad that ran through here, from Cleveland?
An interurban link
A stream of water, dripping from the kitchen sink
They took it as a blessing in those days
Hopping a ride to metropolitan delights
Starched shirts and billowing gowns
Fedora hats and floral arrangements worn conspicuously
By men and women native to a distant county
That age is buried now in historical tabulations
Numerically recorded
By scribbling sages
Bent on preserving what they knew would not endure on back pages
Flesh and bone
Breath and bumbling
A musical retort crafted to mimic the cadence of a drunken fool, stumbling
Forward and free
That bum is wiser by far, than me
He knows when to quit
If only I had such skill in perceiving with the mind what optic nerves cannot see
I would punch my ticket to nobility
A swashbuckling pirate, with a sword long and sharp
Leadbelly plucking out tunes with a lonesome cry sung over a blues harp
That trick of the tale
Might be enough, I think
If it echoed through a concrete viaduct
Magnified and reflected
Boosterized and sanitized
For the gentlest of ears
Darkness leaves the heart to yearn for a new beginning
When the cycle is complete
Lit up with the golden glow of traffic and body heat
On the boulevard
Travelers traipse
Seekers and soothsayers meet their fates
And I am still at the desk, though barely awake after so many hours
Falling down
Chin on my chest
Jerking upward from a spasm of unintended rest
Falling, falling
Fingers skip across the keys without connecting
Gonzo guile makes me guilty
Of lyrical appropriation
I cop that vibe
From something he once jotted down on a fast-food menu, in crayon
A jester’s jump
A cartwheel over a speed bump
Long hours tick-tock tippling away
The second-hand swings in increments barely visible to careful inspection
From this to that
And that to this
Besmirched and forgotten
An apple core, turned rotten
After one bite at the fruit
A solemn padre in a pinstripe suit
Holding the study guide gingerly, as he speaks
Vitalis on his combed crop, wingtips on his feet
“Hear ye, hear ye!”
This is a damn sight better than crouching in a doorway to avoid the rain
I reckoned he must have understood
Must have rightly deciphered bad from good
While I hid out in the shadows cast
By an antenna mast
With the coaxial cable unplugged and limp
So useless and cold
No signal transferred, no showmanship to behold
Just a spark of residual electricity, deferred
A flicker among the stars
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