“Bridge Bouquet”

 

c. 2025 Rod Ice

All rights reserved

(12-25)

 

I lust after the confidence

Of Hunter Stockton Thompson

My hero, HST

Or perhaps Charles Bukowski

GG Allin on a death ride

Eldon Hoke with a Klingon warrior’s cry

These rebel voices spoke to me

Even though I was raised quite differently

A stone’s toss from the edge of forever

Yet implored to stay distant from the allure of never-never

This was the lesson I learned

And then flushed with a tug on the swivel

The cool, metallic handle

That fell easily into my grasp

I wadded up the ceremonial road map

Foolish and fearless

Too young for the grave, too old to be saved

Swinging a hammer at my toes

My father must have had acid reflux in his gut

He would grasp that generous fold, above his belt

And hold it for long enough

To pray for deliverance

From the pit of hell

Not for himself

But for me

At every turn I doubled back

Took a step off the ledge, into lingering black

Like the cartoon coyote

Falling, falling

Deep into the canyon, below

I was too witless and shiftless to know

The judgment that God would bestow

Hungry and freezing under a New York bridge

I was but a lonely, teenaged kid

Living out a Ramones lyric

Willfully, skillfully

Wobbling on my boot heels

I heard the advice of greater minds and rejected it

Sold the birthright of a prince

Unaware that I had ejected it

Then returned in rags

My feet swaddled in supermarket shopping bags

My head bare, but shaggy

Moth holes in my flannel sheath

Which was concealed, underneath

A motorcycle skin

A relic handed down from the sacred him

That gifted me with his genetic code

I might have offered a sign of reverence

If there had been enough time

Yet the passage of our bloodline

Came too swiftly for me to comprehend

With a soul on the mend

Lungs puffed full with promise

Shouting boldly at the rising moon

An orb that glowed with a season, seen too soon

Pockmarked and dusty

That distant point of reference made me consider

That from anywhere it would appear the same

And I, who carried the family name

Like a dumpster-diving, bridge bouquet

Had squandered this view

From behind a ledge of concrete blocks

Trembling as the night grew empty

A persistent growling in my belly

Giving testimony to the misdeeds that were mine

A sentence so serious, at the time

But now, only a whisper of inspiration

For a rhyming cadence of verse, composed

A guilty pleasure, rightly exposed

To the listening ear