roads have many beginnings
many unnoticed steps
stones we shuffle through an indistinct dark
towards a certain failure that lies between
the hopeful and slowly the inevitable.
here, at the End of the Road
America seems to tilt sharply down;
Her highways from the heartland
bleed out through wheat fields and corn stalks;
arteries of hard luck and broken choices
that drain slowly their dust into the sea
and if you open your eyes,
you will see them
the ones who still have color on their clothes
the ones who don’t pull their madness around them like a Mac:
2 new arrivals
the contents of their former lives lying askew;
spilling from a contrivance of the familiar
still far less trash bag than backpack
one rocking slowly into his own grey
reality clearing long lines down his face
whispering a shout no louder than the passing cars
the other, frantically searching
the shallow pits they made in the rocks
to keep the December trades off them;
learning why the homeless never sleep at night
no no not her picture
not her picture
the wallet lies open on the concrete: money has no worth to the homeless
but home;
that is worth your soul
no no no no no no
we’ll find it… we will.
I promise we’ll find it
all those things you can't buy back
with a careless five dollar bill and change
panhandled from their curbside haunts
no
please no
please
I know his choices were never mine, but they are certainly my sadness
passing by
at the precise moment when
homeless
reaches straight through the heart
to pierce the dark
and eyes
dull as the freeway dust that covers them
finally see
but even this is not an ending;
this road doesn’t fall into the sea
a meandering story to sorrows;
no: they continue on into endlessly the cold
a collective of the cast off:
a collective guilt
a collective responsibility,
a plausible deniability;
every grey-man-of words
who wants your vote
so they can total them up
and the road is all that's left to us;
II
streets that click-clack with countless pairs of feet marching to the bonanza and the crippled beat.
Though docilely titillated, the feet are too haughty with the slickness of socio-economic self-awareness to tap-dance, or throw down their things, and join the throng of Harikrishnas who thrum along at one with gods, sky and street.
I myself am not observing from no mount, cloud nor tower; nor am I leaving the museum nor library. No: I'm propelled homewards by carrier bags.
I'll not stoop to mention the tyrannical logos, but you can imagine the all-sorted shapes, sizes, textures and colours; square and oblong enigmas containing further enigmas, charms, beauty and power.
One homeless guy - tramp, bum, hobo - stands out, though he's asprawl on the pavement, in that he resembles Alan Ginsberg, the American poet.
I and all the other feet - wise to the city, and as cold as the sleet that's starting to fall - like one niggard divided into ten thousand pairs, do not condescend eye-contact, let alone spare change.
A conscience cannot be salved by contrasting a junkie, too hurt for action, with a 'third-world' child.
Homelessness is a concept alien to 'primitive' societies.
The sunlight dims and a spectrum of electric lights strike incantational on the neo-classical and 'postmodern' streets.
I arrive home and can't decide whether to put the kettle on or open wine.
III
Passed bitter apples spit and cussed,
here morning stings.
Dawn brings rest to clingy ghosts;
coffee roasts steep the breeze,
rich with omens
kick start the hearty,
My View Carre rising
My Wash Tub on Rampart
Under Cosmo Matassa's
Where Fats, Ray and Lil Richard
Keep the vibes clean with a back beat,
These lean times folks bleeding
Still needing fresh laundry,
The tawdry and maids waiting, hustlers and servants
Keep quarters and soap,
Wash, press and I fold
Assessing a pound, two fifity
I know them. They trust me.
But see please
An episode of squint and splendor
Ripe with fear and loathe of longing,
Kissed a tear bunching up on my lip
Flipped down,
Globe of laugh covered pity filling a comet
Smash a crater in the tender silk I imprint on
Yes Officer he was a friend I'd say
Murdered today? That park beyond the bridge
For what? For nothing he wouldn't give
He had an orange; half was yours.
He shared the bareness of his being,
Chose to loose his check on finer things,
Beyond a roof and piece of sand.
Urban outdoorsman he proclaimed
And knew his mail would come with mine,
In the winter time,
Spring he wandered north beneath the snow geese
Said the heat released his banshee
And the rot he got in 'Nam.
He was a kind man.
He called a niece back east on Christmas,
All he ever had, never named her.
She could claim him maybe.
He kept his fortune in his pocket;
Head busted with a rock,
For a sock chocked with change;
Drank and smoked exchanging disabilities,
Till he was free, was all he tried to be,
Real to me,
Cleansed from memory
Fast as he passed their high hats,
His plump aroma second lined,
He thought it fine and called it French.
They curse his stench and prayed for pity on our city.
He truly lived here. Teaching without preaching,
Through the screams still dared to dream here
Quoted Clemons, Looked like Whitman,
A Navy Cross, blue book mark ribbon
Glib before the hitman I'm sure
His simple censure feeds the mean
Between the gentle and obscene;
High righteous heads shake at the scene,
Claiming the street more serene
Each bloody litter taken back
And black taking a black,
Katrina gleaned Angola youth
Strangled blue.
I lack the gifts to tell you
Truth balloon puppy bent.
He was a friend who lived a tom cat's deal
But lived for real.
and of roads there may be many
and all of them we can't not travel
choosing one 200 years ago
brought the European to the Ohio valley
the buckeye forest almost hid the
pounding river.....
but when i walked there
40 summers ago
only strip-mined
mountain sides collapsed in to coal stained valleys
these roads that brought us into
a third millennium encircle the planet
becoming electrons
or into space as rockets or planes
humanity cast the future
each one a person
the old Hopi informs
embrace the spirit
forsake the road
but sometimes it seems
the road is all that's left to us.....
IV
but America is not the world
nor the only road.
How can I walk a mile
in the shoes he does not have?
Already I felt out of place
ivory towered
fed and showered
posh hotel in the city
on a work trip.
Almost dark in the park
seeking the breath of trees
against the smog
I saw the jolly swagman camping
not beside the Billabong
but Parramatta Road.
He did not return my greeting
but settled underneath a bench
underneath a street light
underneath the tattered remains of his dignity
pulling close about him
a polite invisibility
resting his head
on the stones of forgetfulness.
But I saw
and I remember:
V
I watched them come from the coasts,
floating in like some leaving of forsaken cargo,
as flotsam, the jettisoned of humanity,
marked for a drop off to nowhere-in-particular
they carried with them history in the making,
asking little but for safe haven from tornadoes
and snow as they spanned a continent, coast-to-coast,
this nation supposedly indivisible,
but always divided by rank and class
this one which calls all other "pots" black
melting together faces from all points on the globe,
confined to a track of migration, spinning in a milky
way, never transparent and just as opaque
They drag in the pitch, the black and heated of asphalt,
finding comfort in the meeting places unspoken,
unmarked but intimated by tradition
of those who came and went before
This is their road wound through the middle like a belt,
(holding two halves of a country and coasts
neatly pulled together,)?, a familiar old footpath
worn through (center?)(heartland?), and solid (as hardwood ?)
from the east coast heat to the west coast lull
and sweet pacifist breezes, he and she prefer
to carry knapsack and backpack while bearing
little conformity to dreams spun in America's sleepfulness
they walk among the awake and aware,
that life is rarely ever fair, and fairy tales
are for children and for dreamers
with one eye on the sky and the other on the road
with thumbs up and signs out, I watched them
sign out of the standard issue, make a pact with
the road less traveled, form a community of
compassionate companions and pray for a kind sun:
VI
A new day had begun,
she found herself
among the collective.
Watched, and watching him
from her booth, the only place
she lived these days...
Beneath pools of black coffee
between cracks of maroon
pleather upholstery,
She spied him surreptitiously
with her little eye - those childhood
games played on continual loop,
ooops... did he catch her glance?
Now smiling into her compact,
the blush of her mirror reflecting
hope as often reapplied as her lipstick
in shades of Apple Pie in the Sky Red.
A Maybelline bestseller
America, America....
God paint his face on me.
Me was the new black.
It's the century of the Me, yet
Everyone thought they
were so down with empathy.
E to the M to pathy.
was that spoonful of sugar
helping bitter truth go down as we
Fed on the holy host, its communion
formed by states of a union
where the dissolute and the destitute
sat side by side - Some eating their fill
of themselves, and others rummaging
through garbage bins hungry
for any scraps of attention
VII
as he sits in front of the Safeway
with no shoes and a broken soul
muttering to himself quietly
staring obsessively at grains and gravel
in the breaks in the cement.
The thermometer dips below zero
but there is no place to go;
the shelters are boarded and planked
not a penny in their coffers;
a blanket would be a kindness
but there's no blanket to spare.
He mutters to himself delusions
hopeless yet hopeful
waiting for a savior.
She sits wasted
bloated arm and dirty needle
barely breathing
glazed eyes and vacant stare.
What is left of hope?
Bitter memories with no prospects.
She mutters to herself quietly
as she fills a syringe
hoping that this time
this time it will work,
this time a solution will come
as she shoots up with
other blood sacrifice
for the fleeting forgetfulness:
VIII
and so it is with a preferential blindness we all turn
consumed instead with the hustle and bustle of acquiring
Gifts, we tell ourselves, gluttonous eyes covered
with the blinders of green, silver and gold
cold with hypnotic blinking,
a crumpling and tinkling ringing in our ears
bills and coins deny the beat of empathy,
defy our sensibilities and swallowed down
with guilt - a gulp of tears at injustice and inequity
Where sailed the mercies found in winter?
Did they flee on a sled with a jolly old myth?
Did they run in the rain or the flurry of snow
when storming the gates, doors mauled
with competition, acquisitions to keep up with
the Joneses
We display the jovial in lights with frivolous abandon
obstructing the view of the first Passion
when Love asked nothing for the giving
and the reason for this season lays like that crucifix
empty but trumped by an insistence to obscure the ugly and the real
So where fled the mission of justice?
That cry from the manger, the cross
or the lady standing in a harbor
all hoarse with the years of neglect and ignorance
We hoarded our impotence in pursuit of the shining
emerging from the catacombs of commercial- search for treasure
but failed to carry one small shovel loaded with the golden rule,
or fire for the censors of frankincensal prayers
or apply the myrrh of soothing, salve for the wounds of the outcast
IX
I turned off the engine of the machine,
turned over the keys of wanton collection
and in the stillness of no rush and sweet hush
learned the sanctity of the true language of love
which flows from the mouth of God's broken heart
Compassionate deeds are the proofs that confess
not the decking of halls with holly and guests,
to convey in a mission of mercy and cheer
that hope's 'round the corner in the turn of a year
and that peace for our fellows is a tangible gift
and that good will to all is as simple as this
a present to others that Christmas had missed:
X
a collective of the cast off:
a collective guilt
a collective responsibility,
a plausible deniability;
every grey-man-of words
who wants your vote
so they can total them up
to more of the same inane blindness,
a deliberate unseeing of loss
not giving a toss, no coin,
just a kick in the balls
and a night sleeping rough.
england, a weeping sore
scratched by thoughts of empire
and being the ones who once won the war,
a wistful longing
for a land that never was,
"the past is a foreign country
they do things differently there"
england a weeping sore
kids in care "groomed and raped"
state sponsored bankers
get a hundred grand knocked off a ten mill pension
and cry foul,
howl at them, at all the opium-of-the-people TV
x-factoring us in to blindness
it's a kindness really,
not to see the paucity of our lives
divide and rule
divide and rule,
and so at last, drowning in our silence
we take one last gasp of humanity
and grasp again for the road,
take to the road, and walk it with me
take to the road
the road is all that's left to us.....
a long grey-dust road that’s left to us,
each and all
the Writers of Alabaster & Mercury
All Rights Reserved, 2012
Frater Rodderz
Peter Doyle
Marty Smith
Lori Gomez
Deborah Trimble
Debra Webb Roberts
