People can talk sometimes about something besides
Themselves, what has been done to them.
They can transcend the relief of their belief
Into the clear light of disorientation:
Enoch in neon at Pismo, a blinking Speedee
Whose blue pants scramble above an archless McDonald’s
Amid the Valencias of Fillmore – so we are pinned
To moments, with memory the only perpetual thing.
Sharing isn’t understanding, exactly. It’s more like looking
Through the common eyes of pain, earth school style,
At the hay stacked green in late Lemoore sun, or the careful
Regildings in the gently haunted Hotel Darling …
That’s how thankful I am, full of poppy and lupine
That something will even emerge from my mouth at times,
While other times the roadside stands are only as real as the rats
Who, despite our best efforts, will not be rehabilitated.
Some identities do not survive, it's not resolvable,
What's inside festering and has been since birth,
That wants to squeal like a pig. Eyes must learn
To see themselves outside, not who's looking within.
One time I Iingered too long with my flute, watching two ducks
Float down the aqueducts of Los Angeles near dusk,
Dreaming the bridge lamps into the solidity of old movies
When a brain-damaged gluey gestured with a gun
As micro-turf-falcon obliged to some gang dragon master.
I was lucky I turned into Jesus when he came,
Heart impeccably radiant with such love for his being
He decided to trade my life for the small bag of weed
I sincerely released into his hand, as I did at that moment
All resistance to the world my mother spoiled, with my best friend.
Now I am a cautionary tale at Journalism schools, notorious
For fakery so miniscule readers almost wanted to believe that it was real.
