essay
Pat NOLAN 's Irony Road:
The Fly By Night Tour
back to milk home volume two contents
IRONY ROAD,
The Fly By Night Tour
Keith—
Gearing up for the Nolan "Fly By Night" tour. Exciting, frightening at the same time. It is quite an undertaking, twenty days on the road. Did I tell you I'm taking young Patrick with me? He'll be my roadie/secretary/sorcerer's
apprentice/ photographer/ gofer/ book salesman and ballast. And he'll be my touch of irony, too. Bringing a dyslexic on a reading tour . . . I'm long on irony these days. Actually I'm hoping he'll benefit from the trek to the far French Northeast to meet the shadows of my almost forgotten ancestors. And too, the stopover at Gerry's in
Indiana—my brother's sure to reinforce that he's been spawned into a weird life warp. He's wasting time in school so he might as well come along with me and learn something, anything. Of course the school's all for it . . . he's not there to remind them that they're not doing much for him. Hey, they're even going to give grade credit for taking the trip!
Anyway, the tour starts the 7th at the Portofino Cafe in Pacific Grove where Leonard and I are doing a poetry/blues thing, on the train the 9th and in Denver the evening of the 10th, gig at Naropa the 11th, back on the train the evening of the 12th, change trains in Chicago the afternoon of the 13th and then change trains the afternoon of the 14th in Albany for Montreal where I arrive that evening, stop over till the morning of the 17th when we entrain for NYC and arrive that evening, read on the 18th, leave the morning of the 20th and arrive in Indy the morning of the 21st, stop over till the morning of the 24th when we take the final leg back and arrive the evening of the 26th. Whew!
Ed Friedman's hunting up a place for me to stay while I'm in NYC. Andrei will be staying at the Barbazon courtesy of some "ethics foundation"
—he has his own touch of irony. Hope to visit with some folks while I'm there, and definitely getting tickets for the Matisse show. I have an extra day in New York because the train I'm taking to Indianapolis only leaves three times a
week—the scenic route through DC, Baltimore, and West Virginia. Looking forward to the gig in Boulder, too, and getting together with Anselm. Be great if the three of us could renku while I'm there. We could actually write one that doesn't take six months or longer! Your card says you're in the 80's, but just checked today's national weather and there's been quite a drop in
temps—a little sprinkling of snow, too? Here, the annual Black Bart Fest in Duncan Mills next
weekend—LaVoie due to show for that (we're the doggerel contest judges). Putting together my "Fly By Night" souvenir
program—Gail copying the pages at school and just sent the cover art to the
printer—an interesting mélange of old and new stuff. We'll get everything assembled just under the wire as usual. I hate to travel but I don't mind a journey.
11/2 Monday, Monte Rio.
Sunday's Horoscope, favorable for the week: "November brings the importance of friends, groups, clubs, etc. into the major arena of your life. This week you call the shots. Later? Anything can happen. Nothing is quite what it seems, but an unfulfilled dream can come true."
Art equals selfishness
11/3 Tuesday.
The reality of the journey looms, tethered by an inside tip yet to be confirmed—or the calm before the storm. Clinton & Gore for the next
four—The winds of change begin to blow . . . or is it just a lot of hot air?
My bubble about to burst
once I swore I would never
travel the irony road again
11/4 Wednesday.
"I don't like to travel but I don't mind a journey" will be the unofficial theme of this particular trip. Tension of suspense unrelieved but there's always
tomorrow—who knows—ego does funny inexplicable things—a lesson every second for those willing to
listen.
Collecting the loose pages
I've built my life around
heaped in no particular order
looking for the string that
will bind it all together
the relation of minutia
to the bigger picture
a unified theory of me
among the scattered galaxies
of sense and nonsense
11/5 Thursday.
I wasn't misinformed: received a $2k grant from the Sonoma County Community Foundation! Spent too much time going over my
writing—like an optical illusion, once you see "through" it, it's hard to go back to the original
illusion—i.e., it sucks! Ego does funny inexplicable things.
First you're up
then you're down
the wave of creativity
you ride it or you
get sucked under
11/6 Friday.
Patrick is attentive as I once again go over the details of our adventure. He's hearing the myths of my childhood in more detail. My grandmother's grocery store, the horse drawn delivery wagon, my many uncles and aunts, all with odd-sounding French names. He's sitting among the piles of clothes his mother has laid out for the trip. He doesn't really appreciate the building momentum. Soon we'll be uprooted, on the fly, on our own. I'm obviously more excited than he is.
Not enough time to take
care of all the tiny details
what am I forgetting
11/7 Saturday, Monterey.
Practiced approximately four hours with Leonard for the gig—sounded very good—there's potential. The reading poorly attended but we put on a great show. Forgot to bring my long poem, "Ode To Woman," to the reading, so essentially muffed the second set. Improvised and even that went well as planned, "Ode" would have been a showstopper. Of course, you need an audience to accomplish such a feat, and that was sorely lacking. The irony is that you don't need a big audience to be satisfied with your performance. Those in attendance are mostly friends with whom the bond is strengthened, a sharing we've participated in over the years. And now Patrick can witness first hand what his old man lives for. Linda gets it all down on video. Leonard and I duet on Jimmy Reed's "Goin' to New Yawk" as if we've been doing it forever and the crowd goes wild, relatively speaking. The club owner seems more disappointed than we are at the poor turn out. I thought we were great!
View the video
into the wee hours
among moans of wretched
self-consciousness
we laugh at ourselves
too fat too old
and too late
should there be a thought
other than just enjoy
stupid and satisfied
11/8 Sunday, Oakland.
Partly cloudy, mild. Strange dream in which food poisoning is the main feature. G'bye to Leonard & Linda, go by Sally's new digs where the nasturtiums are sunny and bright. Sally says she would have loved to hear the "Ode To Woman" but is sure she'll hear it next time she catches my reading. Then it's time to strap in for the drive to the Bay area. The reflection is gray, a typical morning (day) after. Spend night in San Leandro with in-laws.
11/9 Monday, Oakland to Salt Lake City.
Clear, cool, full moon. I don't like to travel but I don't mind a journey. Patrick is calm but wide-eyed, alert to his surroundings, the train a novelty. For now. How long before the boredom sets in.
Lunch. The food is pretty bad. Will try to eat as few meals as possible on board. Dinner isn't much better either, so we've resolved to avoid the dining car if we can. Time to reflect, read, write. Not much schoolwork attempted today but as the novelty wears off some work might get done. So far, we've concentrated mainly on bookkeeping and basic (very basic) journal entries. We'll take it slow. For my part I worry and fret about the road ahead, both on this journey and in general. I garrison myself with feelings, or am done so by them. There is a terrible estrangement in my life that I've come to dread. Something to ponder as the landscape flits by, bleak, anonymous, going through the motions, objective to a fault, subjective to a truth. Dismayed and thinking only of myself.
11/10 Tuesday, Salt Lake City to Denver.
Started off cloudy, turned to snow. Fitful sleep. Dreamed I had big discussion with Roger Ebert, the film critic. Can't remember which movies we discussed but we did so in detail and he was impressed by my incisive, knowledgeable comments.
Broke off part
of back left molar
on a peanut
falling apart
bit by bite
I dreamt
something very similar
eons ago
make the connection
with destiny
*
Where the river narrows
debris has gathered water
churns white capped sage
along the bank tops also dusted
with snow and the distant peaks
*
Bare tree line
furrowed snowy fields
barn green year round
serene empty white expanse
but no, a horse, a horse!
abandoned box hives
sit in tall grass nothing but
meadows of snow flowers
bare yesterday limbs balance
layers of snow graciously
*
Late evening's white
and black's fading beauty
here on the Alzheimer's Express
the American male carries
his baggage above the belt
Train hours late arriving in Denver, passengers restless.
Memorable about that stretch is that the kitchen broke down and Amtrak was obliged to provide every passenger on board with free lunch and dinner; deli-sandwich and in the evening The Colonel.
There are lines for the pay phones among the milling masses of obviously exasperated travelers. No one answers the number I have to call and I assume they are on their way. Minutes later Ivan and Keith arrive, slightly bemused by the chaos.
11/11 Wednesday, Denver/Boulder.
Lunch with Anne, dinner with Anselm; what more do I need? Catch the bus to Boulder with Keith. Great view of the Rockies. Grand tour of Naropa. Interesting that such a place should exist. College students are pretty much the same the world
over—young. Met many new faces.
At the Cambodian
restaurant Anne takes
us two for lunch
strange dishes never
before encountered
wrinkle Patrick's nose
wary of the appetizer
a reddish cream soup
flecked with bits of gold
which tastes "ok" and relieved
when the waiter removes it
but when the main course
arrives guess what
he ordered the same soup
only a lot more of it
The reading, ah, the reading . . . got very emotional on a couple of poems and that affected the reading . . . I'm not that great a reader anyway. The audience is mainly Anne and Anselm's students so they're well aware of all the allusions and asides.
I can't say I wasn't very well received. I just don't do this kind of thing enough to be all that confident about my performance. Anselm's appreciative guffaws at some of my more obscure puns make it all worthwhile. But as usual, for me, the best part of a reading is when it's over and I can feel a part of the poetry continuum. Like I belong.
11/12 Thursday, Denver to Fort Michigan.
Out to lunch on the Matisse tickets—I procrastinated and lost. Will try another angle. Cindy Dach takes some poems for
Bombay Gin, the student magazine. I should review the poems for NYC based on what I learned from the reading last night.
That little fizzle
when expectations and reality
come face to face
called disappointment
can't let it overcome me
after all
there's always that
bolt of the wondrous
and unexpected
I won't hold my breath
Obviously a day for disappointment. Anselm a no show for lunch due to a miscommunication. Spend a good part of the day on hold. Haunt bookstores with Keith, looking for rare or first editions. Patrick tags along, lags behind. What are books to a dyslexic but the boundaries of an inaccessible world? I give him some antihistamine to staunch his runny nose. We walk all over old town Boulder and take pictures of the older more interesting buildings. Finally, the altitude and the medication take its toll.
In yet another
book bone yard
the shelves stuffed
with cracked spines
boxes overflowing
with paper bound
rubble underfoot
in the midst of this
paginated entropy
an old overstuffed
ratty armchair
where he settles
the bookstore cat
purring in his lap
and conks out
Later, back in Denver, spend time till departure gassing with Ivan about anything and everything. Names drop like hailstones. He wants to do a whole issue of
The New Censorship featuring my work. Also showered with back issues of the magazine and a little 9X11 b&w oil. He would have given more but it just won't fit in our bags. Takes us to a bar for burgers where a letter from Neal Cassady to his parole officer is displayed in a glass case. Ivan is quite an amazing character, the model for Ellmore Leonard's Chilie Palmer, a genius and a dynamo, but pulled in many directions at once. I wish him peace. Jam for the station, minutes to spare.
11/13 Friday, Fort Morgan to Chicago.
Ah, the inauspicious 13th, bane of the superstitious traveler. The journey continues. The vast nothing of the great American desert. Up close, probably as fascinating as any place in the world. From a passing train, big empty boring. Thank goodness for sleep. Patrick has the right idea. I try to read or write. Manage only
to worry. He patches his psyche with dreams. And even as he sleeps, he grows. Or does he sleep because he's growing? As tall as me now and just into his teens. The two are connected, I'm certain. His lethargy is sullen. I can't get him interested in any of the projects we had planned: keeping a journal (language), mapping our journey (geography), and accounting for our expenses (math). These are the fantasies of a parent, that our children will accept the wisdom of our experience. No such luck. I finally get him to take pictures through the train window.
The Cubism of small
Midwestern towns oblique angles
Protestant church spires
block upon block
square brick buildings
Two hours late into Chicago. Much panic about missing their connection among the passengers. The train attendants are wearily resigned to the fact that we'll get in late. They hold the connection 40 minutes for us.
11/14 Saturday, Chicago to Montreal (& Sorel).
Snow squalls through Ohio and Pennsylvania. Real stuff, not like the cute snow coming through Colorado. This stuff is serious, drifts between cars on the way to the diner for breakfast. These Eastern accents are friendly, not the sullen vacancy of Western passengers. Out the window, a thicket of wilderness in upstate New York in a dusting of the season's first flurries. Detrain at
Schenectady—try saying that with a mouthful of granola—for our connection to Montréal.
Should I be surprised
there are living talking laughing
people in this world,
could I be one of them?
maybe but not so easily
From Schenectady to St. Lambert across the border, up along the shores of Lake Champlain, a brilliant maple landscape out of
Cooper's Deerslayer, an easy ride filled with apprehension. What am I getting into? Waves of sentimentality overtake me.
Arrive in Sorel from St. Lambert with my aunt's friend. Realize how lousy my French is.
Just because you
say a word
with a French accent
doesn't necessarily
mean something in French
Sometimes I feel like Cajun man. My aunt's friend, Simon, a gracious man in his seventies, is more at ease with me than my relatives. At Madeleine's house,
Francoís and his wife, Marcelle, are waiting there too. There is a little uneasiness on their part, a little hesitance, as if to ask,
"Why is he here?" Maybe I should ask myself the same question. It's terrible to have all this sentiment and not have the words to put it
in—frustrating not being able to speak the eloquent tribute of my thoughts. On the other hand I've descended on them like a ghost from the past. Who knows what wounds and memories I've opened. I am maybe a pebble in their otherwise calm oyster. Perhaps my journey here was purely selfish (little doubt about that). At any rate, they should remember my visit here as one that meant well no matter how badly spoken it was. Patrick and I are to spend the night at my Aunt Therese's. Driving there and passing through the old part of town, I recognized landmarks almost immediately. The building that once housed my grandmother's store still standing. The fork in the road that leads to my Aunt's house, the large warehouse that used to house my Uncle's bottling plant looms, shadowy beyond the streetlight, as the car pulls up to stop, no longer just a memory.
One early memory
me in blue shorts
a few sous in hand
(first born always
showered with coin
by their uncles)
and the aroma of
fresh baked French
bread at this very
fork in the road
11/15 Sunday, Sorel.
Wake to the nagging question of what am I doing here. A steady stream of relatives calls or drops by. An interesting development. And the closeness of family makes itself known. A closeness that could suffocate if you let it. But for the brief time I'm here, it's a wonderful warm feeling that I've yearned for since I left thirty years ago. One thing about these French Canadians is their irrepressible humor and word
play—the banter is almost non-stop. This bodes well for my sense of where I get it. I grew up with the love for verbal play. It must be something that's common in large families. First my Uncle Jacques calls and welcomes me back to the land of my birth. The next thing I know he's at the door and we're having coffee together. That's how the day begins. After coffee, it's off to Marcelle and
Francoís' for an unbelievable midday feast: la tortelle (a meat pie), turkey, cloud-like mashed potatoes, peas, glazed carrots, two kinds of wine and that incomparable Canadian beer. And spruce beer (bier de pin), a taste that puts root beer or ginger ale to shame, so I get to taste my childhood here as well. Not to mention the wonderful attention and conversation of my family. But, boy, is my French lousy! And it's incredibly frustrating not to be able to say what I mean. How I've missed them, how much I love them all and what a vast emptiness it is not to have the closeness of their large family. Without realizing it, it is something I have yearned for all my life, the steadfastness, the security of familial associations. Is that why I'm a poet? My heart, my soul sings to bridge the gap, the emptiness I feel without them. They are so dear to me that it brings me to tears. They are the great love, the great emotion of my life. I could never forget them. I will never forget them.
11/16 Monday, Sorel.
Such sentiment, but I keep it to myself. I repeat myself. I don't particularly care to but as I visit each new person, a relative I haven't seen in thirty years, I tell them the same stories over and over; stories of my travels, stories of my childhood memories, stories of my children. My French is becoming more fluent though there are still huge gaps in my vocabulary. Today, Simon takes us on a tour of Sorel and the old part of town, some of the buildings over 350 years old. The metal roofs, the wrought iron street side balconies and porches speak of another culture, another country. All this in the search of post cards of la ville de mon enfance and all to no avail. There are card depicting
Montréal or Quebec but none featuring this tiny, historic town. My relatives were thoroughly disgusted. Imagine not one post card of the place, and we went to every store, even to the new mall on the edge of town. Nothing. What if a tourist came through town? He would have nothing to send to his poor mama . . . and so the talk goes on to spiraling heights and I try to keep up as clumsy as my
Quebecoís is. We visit Therese, my uncle Gille's widow. Then back to the other Therese's for lunch of pate chinois that is really a hash of potatoes, ground beef and corn. Standard fare as I remember. Later that afternoon we visit Lucille who lives across the street from St. Pierre's, the oldest church in town, and also where, I am told, my mother was married. We take pictures, for our own post cards. And still later we've been invited to Jacques' for supper and more nonstop gabbing. After a couple of glasses of wine, my French seems to improve. I meet my cousins for the very first time, young men and women curious as to who these travelers whom they've heard of before but never thought they'd meet, might be. Return later with Simon to Madeleine's to spend the night. Leave tomorrow. Snow predicted.
11/17 Tuesday, Montreal to New York City.
Temperature
in the teens
a light overnight
snow has glazed
the lawn a few
flakes still to drop
lazily onto the finger of his
glove his tongue
also in his teens
his first snowfall
It begins with snow on the drive from Sorel and then on the train back down along Lake Champlain, the grass and trees flecked with snow to add to their particular beauty. Ice slowly forms on ponds and the water in ditches. It's that cold. Snow still falling as daylight fails. Apprehensive as we approach New York City. Its reputation and my memory of it overwhelm me. I feel the tightening in my back and neck. What will be waiting for us?
The click clack
of wheel on rail speaks
to me in French
quatre-vingts
quatre-vingts
Taxi to Brooklyn, the turbaned driver knows the way to Bob Hershon's, a pleasant two-story brownstone. Bob, older than I had imagined from his phone voice, affable, congenial, and his wife, Donna Brook, welcomes us. I'm beat, and relieved.
11/18 Wednesday, New York City.
The big day. Awake to sirens wailing blocks away. What should I expect? Home alone. Bob and Donna at work. I steel myself to venture out onto the streets of Manhattan. Subway from Brooklyn easy enough. Patrick is agog at the sheer humanity. He is suddenly very animated, awake, eyes wide open, an easy grin. "I could live here," he states to no one in particular. That the projects are just down the street from where we're staying is cool, just like in his rap songs. This place is alive.
St. Mark's much the way I remembered. Ditto the Lower East Side. Pick up the check for the reading. Meet Gillian McCain and Ed Friedman, chat briefly, but the air is very professional, impersonal, as if we've interrupted their work. This is The Poetry Project, isn't it? Walk to bank and cash check. Still apprehensive. Unable to connect with Andrei. Catch subway to Brooklyn. Bob gets home from work and we have a scotch. I have to admit I'm feeling a little nervous about the reading but then who
wouldn't—St. Mark's is about the most important venue for eccentric poets there is.
A handful of keys
Bob's had his car
stolen twice
recovered both times
the trunk lock's
been punched and's
replaced by a special
lock the door locks
as well heavy duty
one shuts off the alarm
one for The Club
on the steering wheel
and one across the brake
and clutch now which
one's the ignition
Finally, after a great meal at the famous Second Avenue Deli across the street (pastrami sandwich and mushroom and barley soup), St. Mark's is starting to fill up. I step outside for some air and to collect myself. Andrei and company approach out of the mist. Ah, mon ami, we meet again. Then Maureen comes striding up. Be still my heart. A hug, a peck on the cheek. Andrei wants his turn. And so we're all together again at last. The communion of souls, kindred spirits, wordless, happy, a bright ring of energy surrounds us, binds us in a way no other association can.
I'm surprised by Ed Friedman's introduction. It's fantastic! Me, I'm nervous. My mouth is dry. I drink a lot of water. I read. I sweat. I stink. This is truly a tough crowd. No snickers, giggles, or guffaws in the appointed places. What am I doing wrong? I plod through my poems, each one seeming more leaden, more lackluster than the previous one. I'm starting to suffocate. Then it's over. Milling around during the break, I feel my eyes glaze over. People come up to me and comment on the reading. Mostly positive. I don't know what to think. I can't think. I don't think. Andrei reads a selection of poems that appeared in the latest
Exquisite Corpse. Then he reads some poems from Belligerence. He reads too little, and too soon, it's over for him, too.
After hanging around St. Mark's, shifting from foot to foot, waiting for everyone to leave and Ed and Gillian to close things up, we wander like puffs of smoke, in twirling eddies of conversation toward the bar for the after-the-reading drinks. Imagine a crowd of writers pirouetting across 10th St. and straying across 2nd Ave. oblivious to anything but themselves. The Ukrainian Club accepts us en masse. There was only one customer at the bar when we walked in. Much milling and positioning, boots commandeered, sycophants arranged in semi-circles around the stars. I stick to one end of the bar and talk shop with Maureen. Too soon, the evening ends. Donna wants to go home.
Ah yes, Aphrodite
Trystakissme!
the goddess of parted lips
at her altar I pray
eyes closed await
the breathy
moist soft and sweet touch
she's occupied
at the moment implying
that I get a life
she doesn't have a clue
she is that life
I her fervent devotee
at her altar I pray
eyes closed await
the breathy
moist soft and sweet touch
that's just the beginning
11/19 Thursday, New York City.
It's over. And I'm glad. A day to kill, a day to reflect. We walk across the Brooklyn Bridge, in remembrance of Hunce Voelcker. Many pics taken. Get confused as to which subway train to get on. Two gruff types, obviously veterans of the underground system step forward like Mutt and Jeff guardian angels and point us in the right direction. We ride the Staten Island ferry and get some cheap shots of Lady Liberty as well as the world's most crowded skyline. But finally, too beat to even attempt the museums, give up and return to Brooklyn. Maybe it's good I didn't get those Matisse tickets. Take aspirin and listen to some Aretha therapy on the headphones. Brood, pine; I'm too old for these feelings. My path straight, narrow, paved in concrete. Yet. Bob and Donna take us for terrific Chinese food in
Brooklyn—"deepest Brooklyn" as Bob calls it. Back at the flat, a late night call makes it all too precise and too clear. "Johanna's not here." I must have dialed the wrong number. I am a fool aren't I?
11/20 Friday, New York City to somewhere in West Virginia.
Up at 4 am. No reason. Bob and I agree. I am an anxious traveler. Get to Penn station an hour ahead of time. Once entrained, I feel I can "relax". Newark, Philly, Baltimore, DC and its monuments, snap, snap. The dingy bricks of Virginia's countryside recall another odyssey so many years ago—"I'm much younger than that now." Post cards caught up. I'm on the return loop, Indiana here I come! More Aretha therapy into the midnight hour. So wound up I could use a cigarette and I haven't smoked in 20 years!
11/21 Saturday, Indianapolis to Nashville, Indiana.
Arrival in Indy delayed, freight train derailed on track ahead, have to detour. Anticipate shower and horizontal position. One thing about riding the train on the grand tour like this is that you encounter the regional types: the Westerner, Midwesterner, Northeasterner, Atlantic Coaster, etc, each with their own specific genotype and mannerism. Unlike flying, you meet a lower (poorer) class of people but altogether friendlier. A freight train passes going in the opposite direction. The sound that our interception (meeting) makes is that of an anguished cry. My sentiments exactly. Train derailment costs two hours. Rain in Indianapolis, the brick crypt of the Midwest. Nancy there to pick us up and take us to Gerry, minding his shop like a trap door spider, only stepping out for a smoke. The shop is his life now. Sure is good to see him.
11/22 Sunday, Nashville.
Spend the day puttering around Gerry's shop. Tornado warning reports on the radio. Gerry's not worried. The media fuels tornado hysteria on a slow news day. His opinion at least. Later, check into a B & B. Gerry comes up and talks more business. Slowly but surely, he is being successful. He has an intuitive sense of what he is doing. Watch TV News tornado damage.
11/23 Monday, Nashville.
A good night's sleep. Still tired, a peripheral exhaustion. Shopped for the trip back. Select the gifts for the family from Gerry's unique display of wares. His gift to me is Mississippi culture stone parrot pipe, circa 1200 A.D. Talk more business. Supervise math homework. Dinner and more long, philosophical, and economic rambles. The tornado of the previous day was more serious than Gerry thought.
11/24 Tuesday, Nashville, Indiana to somewhere in Nebraska.
Another restless night. Up at six thirty. Breakfast at 7. Gerry joins us for coffee. Nancy drives to Indy. Train leaves promptly. A relief to be underway again. Call Gail, get the tragic news about Nikki. I feel for Marge and Fred. She was their life. They protected her, sheltered her and now she's taken from them. A freak accident. So sad. Unspeakably so. Certainly underscores our transitory existences, our vulnerability to chance occurrences, and the foolishness of the belief that these things only happen to others. There is no set or predetermined life span. Now you see me, now you don't. For this reason then I should determine to live life, every moment to the fullest and not sweat the small stuff. Catch the Zephyr from Chicago.
More thoughts on loss. Reading Graves' autobio, I think that Death is the artilleryman randomly firing his shells at a grid populated with people. The shells explode and kill and maim. Sometimes there is only one victim, other times there are many. Profound, n'est-ce pas? I guess I'll always be a malcontent. Dissatisfied with my lot, no matter what. Even when I catch the gold ring, eventually I come to believe it to be brass. The difficulties of life don't cease once you've won the prize. It is only the bright bangle on your otherwise dreary existence. All this to say that we have no control over the insignificant blips we call our lives. If we can live with them with humor and latitude, we are way ahead. But fools that we are, narrowness and pettiness rule, and we can't see beyond the clod we kick up with the toe of our shoe.
11/25 Wednesday, Somewhere in Nebraska to somewhere in Utah.
Bright sun glare off snow blanket. Grain stubble adds a touch of straw color. Pass through
whistle-stops—icicles glitter from the platform eaves. Set watch to Mountain Time, Denver morning, and digging out from under a big snow dump. What can I do with these words? I'm just too imperfect to be loved the way I want to be
loved—big sigh. I want someone with intelligence but someone like that could never remain blind to my faults for very long. Stark lightning struck tree bald eagle perch. Recall, in my fitful sleep, dreamed Allen Ginsberg was teaching kindergarten at the old Monte Rio School. Not too many details except that he read a Jack Kerouac poem that made me cry.
A drunk prowls
the aisles annoying woman
causing a commotion
falling from side to side
side from car to car
trains stops
at a crossing in No Where, Utah
where in the glare
of headlights deputies
take him into
custody
11/26 Thursday, Somewhere in Utah to Monte Rio.
Wake to Pacific time, the flat scrub of Nevada high desert already two hours behind schedule. No one is surprised. The hope is that we can make up an hour of that. Back on home turf but once your feet leave the ground you never land back on the same spot. Explain why on the flattest expanse the train shakes the most. Anticipate return to domestic routine, how lethal that is to the creative imperative. It is duty and to that I've become accustomed. Gold beauty of the river bottom lands among the stark gray bluffs, the grasses heavy with seed and cottonwood along the steam whose leaves cling, even this late in the year and glow. Once in California there's no mistaking that sky, cloudy or blue, and the light, delight. The deciduous forests are gorgeous in the waning light contrasting with the evergreens. The last miles are typically and interminably the longest.
11/27 Friday, Monte Rio.
I can't remember what the gingko leaf symbolizes in Japanese literature but when I get home from the trip and walk around the yard to reacquaint myself with my garden, a breeze picks up and blows these two leaves off the tree. I save them. They're so beautiful, so golden. Like the moments we spent together.
Fine with me
my ride insists we leave but
keeps stopping to socialize
I get kissed good-bye
over and again