Old Flames XXI: The Ol' Patriots of Romance

Dearest sly protectors of saintly hearts and groves of men and women out of line with the American Dream, it's time to rise up and get yours. What was redder than the farmhouse? What was wilder than the river? What was scarier than the night sky? The heart.

Wouldn't you agree, students?

Truly, truly, truly.
Laughter.
Prayer.
Sleep.

This is the afterglow of conversation, the coy nap of the ancients, the truest form of dreams. Wait for the end of time, and you'll discover a mass grave of clocks, but you won't get the wrath of a god. And so goes the ocean, and so goes the horizon, and so goes people. We are the worst forever that somehow has the reputation for being the best party.

Beautiful confetti, angelic cake eyes, every balloon in town, why wouldn't this be the reclaiming of our childhoods? The future is the most sold-out show of our time. Ask the priests and the rabbis. I hear they're in a bar somewhere right now, according to some joker.

Hear those church bells and dinner party string quartets? Oh, this will surely be the swelling of summer and Christmas in the same gut reaction. Century lands for century men, say the willing. Beg not the word of god, for our ears are fragile, say the others. What gods would be here for a vacation home anyway?

Pirates slurs and patriot sweats, this is the free-flow panic of a lofty, crafty zeppelin of a man. Wit has no end for the wealthy, just as the gods have no end in sight of all humans. Wrap this world like a banshee and wait for us to pen the great works of a century empire.

Played well for a bad deal.
Sung high for his dead pals.
Waited in line at the pearly gates.

This steamship chants out a blues song as it coughs along the evening water. White memories just floating down the forest glass with orange jives and yellow whys awash in the golden hue of the background. Spill some pinks and reds, we're sweet on the onlookers.

I just hope we did this better than anyone. I hope we rocked out for good. I hope we ruined that party we only now heard about. Slummy chumps squawking on the radio; too poor, too sane, to get on the megaphone. But we were boys, and boys will listen to anyone with a hero's inflection.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, sell us the sandlot back. We've hardly touched the place since childhood, all with nostalgia biting at your heartstrings that you mistook for intestines. It's a complicated issue, says the guardian angel on-watch. What, glorious angel of time and regret, do you really work for minimum wage?

I was born a charity case, and I have the trail of fallen women to prove it, wrangles the mouth muscle in a fit of old-timey swagger. Born to Hollywood during the Golden Age, everything changed when they gave superheroes a drinking problem. It was supposed to be real, says the executive. It was supposed to be art, says the critic. It was supposed to be both, says the artist.

Cheers.
From all angles.
Out of lungs, out of mouths.
Out into the world, those fresh breaths.

Why did we have to die all those times before? Because we had to get broken to get mended to get strong. I get it now, says everybody and nobody at once. Watch out for the boundaries of this play, it may be on its way to Broadway.

Junior high memories crank out like bluegrass, and I wait for the birthdays and holidays to stop, but once I get to the end, I only want to go back. It hurt like hell, but, as Churchill chuckled his philosophy, if you're going through hell, keep going.

So that's how I became a writer, I'll tell the interviewer. And she'll laugh to her male co-host, and I'll go home a rich man. I'll go home in my fast car, to my faster wife, to my slow-motion wet dream of a life. I was made king of your dreamscape, lord of your nostalgia, prince of your longing. I was the playwright that murdered that plot. I was the anarchist that burned the government. I was that wordplay on that wordplay. And I didn't even have to beg to do it. It was given to me by time. I was the first at this. I was the first car to race, the first tv to destroy, the first whisper to be heard after love-making.

So true was this grief, I wailed as a vaudevillian for days. I was hope uncouth. I was barely awake in a song. I was the tremulous yearning of better days. Where were you in that labyrinth? Did you see the end of days? How did we end up here?

And what good was any of it?

I wonder.

Old Flames XX: Fireworksmoke

We rode to the fireworks, but just barely missed them. We dodged traffic to catch the tail-end of the grand finale. We loitered around long enough to catch the shallow follow-up show they did out of guilt. For a brief moment in America, all I could see was a firework show and a stop sign. Wasn't that America?

Wasn't that life, missing the big show to catch the smaller, shorter show that leads to wanting more? Isn't that what summertime bike rides are for? Aren't we just trying to find the kids we grew up with?

That was the panic attack under the streetlight. That was the explosion that we heard within our rattling bodies. We heard the aches of the years. We heard the wearing of bones. We heard the exhaustion of thought. But it wasn't enough. We rode on.

We rode through neighborhoods, suburbia, love, lawlessness, hope, rage, beauty and war. We sailed through the years with ease, curving our wrists over the passing of time, just a smooth drift through the purple, blue and white of time travel. Just another light show to walk through. Just another late night dive that nobody can get enough of.

This was the beginning of the end. It was the end of the beginning. All of this was never meant to be, but it was unstoppable.

Truly, we waited for it as it swallowed us whole. Time mangled our bodies and made our minds better. But it hurt. We don't know what to wait for now, and maybe that's the problem.

Maybe the problem isn't that we need to make it to the tracks. Maybe the problem is that we aren't sure what station it is.

Old Flames XIX: Truly, The Majestic

I once told a friend that I would rather spend an afternoon with the Devil than a night with God. When he asked why, I told him, "Because I can talk to a criminal. I don't know what to do with a nun."

He told that he wished Popsicles could be so realistic and so rotten and so unfathomably untrue.

"Come on, what good are churches?" I asked like a sadist.

"We all need a home away from home," he told me coolly.

"Isn't that what Hawaii's for?"

"Well, that's somebody's home too."

"Aren't churches a home too?"

"God doesn't live there. God's a nomad."

This ended the conversation.

And all parties went home.

I told this story in a bar once. The bartender had heard it before.

"It's a morality play, isn't it?"

"It's life," I answered with a sip, hold the grin.

"Yeah," he nodded. "Isn't life a morality play?"

This shut me up for two more drinks.

Then I wasted a cough on another tale.

"I was never in the army," I explained. "But I had my character assassinated. It was suicide."

"That a riddle?"

"No," I rolled. "It's a joke."

"It ain't good."

"Suicides never are."

"So you pulled the trigger?"

"Didn't have to be a gun. Could've been a tool, an instrument of death, a fork for the grim," I rattled with treachery. "You can assassinate somebody's character, but it's always a guaranteed way to kill yourself off slowly. What kind of a man wastes another man like that without the shrapnel kicking back?"

"A good marksman."

"The most accurate marksmen are those who commit suicide."

I laid this story out when I realized that suburbia wasn't a cage or a prison. It's a lair for all the monsters. The seven deadly sins aren't wishes. They're gods. Or they're devils. Either way, it's organized crime.

Why do husbands always fear telling their wives that they fear a demon showing up across the room, not even bothering to hide?

What's the greatest tragedy? I asked one dinner party.

"The greatest tragedy is that we're out of wine," someone joked. They all laughed. Except me. I said no and my eyes never left.

"The greatest tragedy is never being able to tell a good joke when you need it."

The awkward silence bounded, and everyone broke into hysterics.

I told that story at a card game when I won something more than money. I won pride. I won a god in a card game. But I couldn't fit him in my glovebox, so I left him at the party. He's probably way ahead by now.

I got so mad once that I told a story to kill time.

You either get it or you don't.

Is it a riddle? Is it a joke?

Well, isn't the better question always, hey, who cares?

Yep.

But the problem is that God and the Devil both care. One's just a better businessman, and the other's running a charity.

Old Flames XVIII: A Beautiful Hope

Dazzling spectacles, I talk of you often. This was the last thought before evening. The sun crashed into the earth, wet from drinking, wayward from scotch. This was the last prayer of the infidel.

What a time, we had. What a holiday we conquered. This Roman joke of a Christian new year, celebrated in the peak of summer sweat and seduction. Oh, lovely traveler, where have you been for the year? This season will cure what ails you in this forbidden heat. Sure, give me the bucket of rain to make mist. Give us the mystery, they wailed. I make the weather here. In this neighborhood, I'm the chump-sotten god. I'm the one that broke bread with the Devil because he had free cable. This is our promise massacre. This was that last dynasty of brothers. It was a the final trick of the demon that spent the winter under my bed, playing cards with bad decisions, gambling everything.

But this summer has already been a soft spot in my heart attack. It's new to my touch, after a beaten spring of trial and error, mutiny and mistake, beloved and born-again. Screwed up from the very beginning, I had one chance to not set fire to suburbia. I coughed it up in the backseat of a Cadillac and wrote the poetry on a pizza box years later. I read it again in the caverns of my head and called it the roast of the century. I remember youth. I remember the olli-olli-oxen-free.

This is the next scene, but not the finale one. This wasn't the last bike ride, was it? This wasn't the last patriot barbecue, was it? I have so much more of America to love. I have so many more hearts to cover and favors to call in. I have so many dying wishes. I couldn't go to the grave without a lawyer's legal pad. I want my will written underground. I want my last taste to be poison. I want all regrets to flood out of my bullet hole wounds. I want all desire to keep me warm in the good, gracious cool halls of Heaven's waiting lobby. But don't call it limbo. I didn't bring a schtick.

Old Flames XVII: A Merciless Construct

I'm sure you could call it society after enough poker games. Grill up the sun and serve it to the earth. Beg the rainwater to be a dinner guest. Feed it famine and call it politics. Never churn up old memories of swimming at the lake, so you can sleep at night. Forget all that once was laughter. Dazzle the night sky with fireworks built from glistening beads of sweat from a prairie rainstorm. Kick up your heels against the fence. Tilt the chair back. Dip your head. Appreciate your underwear wardrobe. And watch the great sky above you shake.

This is when you'll whistle, and it'll be heard around the world. You'll write letters to beckon it back. You'll become pen pals with the wind. You'll keep a diary of dirt. Rusted in the murky swamps of mankind will be the thoughts you left out to dry in Hell. Oh, gods, what foolish mortals us liars be.

Radiate, radiate, radiate! I witnessed the beauty. I caught sight of the slip. It was just a utopian wink, a currency in the better lands. But all we have are our books. Thank goodness for pillows. I was nearly executed as a dreamer. But they couldn't convict me for sleeping.

Old Flames XVI: To The Birth Of Rock 'N Roll

I remember someone telling me that, if they could time travel anywhere, they'd be there for the birth of rock 'n roll in the '50s. They'd miss the war, they'd miss America being handed off, they'd just be there for right between the nervous breakdowns of 20th Century Americana.

And who would he be sipping syrup with? Chuck Berry? Elvis? All the poodle skirt babes and their yokel boyfriends in the cardigans? Goddamnit, he had a point. Rock 'N Roll is one hell of a show, but, back then, it started in high school cafeterias at night. It started in brick buildings with ivy. It didn't start in some cool, hip spot. It may have landed there, but it stared in concrete buildings with no hope on the outside. It started on basketball courts where the jocks weren't allowed. It started in a band room with the cats that smoked. It came from the beating hearts of American teenagers, and somebody had to make a living that wasn't in "his daddy's shop."

This was the America that men have been searching for even before they sought women. But once they sought women, it became a hunt real fast. It's just one generation after another now of the sly and the wicked looking for a dive to maybe slip in. The backyard parties weren't enough and we needed something with ice, they'll say. You ever been to New York City, darling? They'll coo it until their sunglasses melt from the heat. That's what it'll be.

Get there before the doo-wop, get there before the glam, get there before they show you how they wreck the piano. Get there for the birth of rock 'n roll, son, or don't bother getting there at all.

And if you do...well, bring a guitar, my man. We've got a nation to shred.

Old Flames XV: A City Without Sidewalks (For The Streets)

Oh captain, my captain, what ever did happen? We were at the bottom of the sea of a beer bottle symphony. Oh dreaded, how dreaded, getting drunk in Davy Jones's locker. My goddess, you goddess, this was the last meal I cooked my last day for. This grave, this grave, oh, what can I save?

This fire, what fire? Oh, spray-paint the mire! It's tragic, so tragic, what's left of our word. Our bond, our bond, our brass knuckle bond, what did they say about our knucklehead band? Miss City, my city, please show me your pity. We have subway cars to catch, so we can die in a rut. Merry, ha - marry, I be the anarchist whim, that never did swim well through a bar that served gin.

A joke, what joke? I gave 'em hell and it's me that must tell the world's longest joke that never truly ends. So give me the dagger and wager your swagger, so we can drag the lake for fingerprint clues. A mess me, why mess me, this be the only mess we see. Tragic, this relic, born of the old world that never got sick. So us now, go now, we have to stay here to bury our dead. Bury your head. What flood has fled?

This drum, this war, this christ, this danger, this laughter, this gun, this future, this past, this present of a dying god - may this be the only peace. Kill the lights. Most wolves are abound. But thank goodness we've got the only grins in town.

Old Flames XIV: Under The Spell Of Poison

Under a desecrated moon, under the bone-bare trees, under the spell of poison, we howl and cackle. In the blues, in the yellows, the reds and oranges too, we can glow in the winter and sparkle in the summer. But, for now, we rest here, somewhere between a wink and a hallway. We left the churches, the military wards, the crazy old hospitals we called home. We're on the roads now, stepping the line every inch we get. Roll out a new highway. We all have new cars.

So what is the miracle of language? Is it not actually speaking? Is it knowing with hands and shoulders? How shall we communicate in the future, when all of everywhere is barren, laid to waste, burned against the sky like a cemetery tombstone?

That's where we come in. When the world is feeling lowly and wretched, we drink gin by the flames that burn our back with shadows. But we need to keep dancing and never stop singing, so that the world will feel loved again. We our heroes in and by our own rights. Merciful nights, we beg of you to break our hearts and rebuild, rebuild, rebuild. We are merry without control, jealous without hate and the personification of love without the broken parts. But, for this, we are damned. We are damned to a culture of never stopping. Tirelessly, slumping against each other, swinging our hands like tools, just moving like we think the tune and hum will be done soon. But we left all the holy men in a ditch we call the old world.

But this isn't the gold in our hands, the prayer without coughs, the legends without footnotes. This is the last era of honesty. This is the tremendous storm we saw coming. Well, shall we burn our fingers on tears or break our arms from carrying all the guilt? Surely, this isn't the last time we'll call God crying.

Hell no to Hellfire, we'll all cheer. But then we'll wonder how to get the heat and, before you know it, we'll be trapped between a fire and a sky again. We'll eat the stars and dip our hand in the further galaxies like ponds. How far can the moon be anyway? The North Star, how far north I say? I shall bathe in the Milky Way and watch all of my former lives die on the planet before me, one after another, always sipping the finest blackhole of champagne. Consider Heaven a bathroom floor, mesmerized by the startling chill of a tiled white endless.

So, then, what are dreams but last chances and resorts in a stunningly real school of thought? How about you Roman, Greek and Norse gods of dreams? Tell me, what have I gotten wrong here?

Nodding a head is the closest thing to an aneurysm and the slightest form of dancing. But, for now, I must say, it will have to do. I simply can't go back in there without my tuxedo.

Well, then, if this startles us all as the newest medium of memory, after a history of thought, I shall drink myself to death! It is the only way out! I cannot love again and I cannot go home again. This is a startling crash of myself. I thought I had more years, but I want none. If this is as good as it gets, then I consider myself a lucky man. I had years to figure it all out and I didn't. But, gosh darn it, I had a grand time. What, with the laughs and the trips and the parties? Here's to me never living again! I've got to tend to my rest if I'm to be a real player around here, a mover and shake, if you will. I've got a reputation to keep, or fix, or build. Who knows the rule of the western heaven prairie? Maybe it'll be tumbleweeds of clouds. Maybe the good people have all gone to bed. Maybe it just wasn't enough fun.

What a lark! Why can't we have everything? Why must we wait for it? Why shouldn't we choose death as a means and not an end? What say you, grim? Old friend reaper, I won't bother you again, or for a long while at least. We will just have to wait to find out. "Welcome to the new mystery; we have seats waiting," the banners will read. So play the music, angel drummers. Ready the gates, patron saints. Role out the red carpet, Jesus. I'm on my way.

Old Flames XIII: For The Horses That Ride Into Glory

From the battlefront, it's easy to count the stars. Many nights, it will be the last thing you consider beautiful. Pop the tent, pop a beer and wrestle yourself to the ground for the spectacular disorder that is humanity. After the violence cleans out all veins and arteries dirtied with old blood, we shall drain ourselves here, out in the field, where makeshift graves are solitude and rest. We are old, but we are tired and angry. We are hurt, buried alive within ourselves. Our bones creak and our muscles hiss, like that of a vintage radiator. We can remember the history of cars, but we don't know why we find ourselves scrapped from the scrap pile. We read the good book in motels in between fits and we kept our homes bare, for who knows when we would join the war effort again? Here we are at breakneck speed, sure of the impact, confident in free will. Surely, we are not to go to bed without knives, fiends and friends? What kind of dinner party would that be?

Old Flames XII: Godspeed You To Sea, Young Mariner

Godspeed you to sea, young mariner. Do not take up piracy, fatal youth. This is a beach to bury the dead. This is not where you will build and burn your summer home.

Oh, the burning, you ask?

You will find yourself alone and heartbroken, drunk on sweet rum, trampled by the hopeless and pitied by the gutless, looking for a world to tear down. And then you will find your home on the cliff and wish it to fall. But what of the rocks below?

Feed them.

They are hungry for your body, but you still have more reward to see upon your head. Let them finish the house you built with dry hands and eager manner. Let you announce your home's demise and let the rocks below grind their teeth. This is you on a dark beach, awash in flames, cackling insanity under the moon that crawls across the water like a beggar in love.

This is mutiny upon ourselves! This is young boys and young girls making blood pacts in the trees! This is forlorn devotion to the last cause that ever mattered: our future!

Wreck this day and night will be filled with the saddest lover to ever want to rob you. Shall you take up above the tavern? Good, then watch the waves. We are waiting for enemies.

Old Flames XI: The Genius Art Of A Fallen Society

Run from this town, I've got the get-outta-here blues. Pack up the caskets and feed the horses, we've got a two-day ride. To where, a man of god will ask. To the promise land, an outlaw will answer. And all but the preacher will laugh.

This is the highland lowlife livin' we told and sold to the saviors. These are the secrets we used to bargain for our lives. What did you give up, the public will ask. We'll say nothing and they'll believe it. But then we'll say everything. We gave up everything. Every word in the dictionary was given up. Every misspelling in the holy books was given up. Every error in the history books was given up. Every laughable mistake in brochures and presentations was given up.

"This is the time of the businessman?"

"Nay, this is the fall of the businessman."

Well, what gives, donkeys and elephants? Where's the school spirit? Where's the ol' college try? Maybe these questions would be more opportune if you hadn't cut the education budget. Thanks for burning the prisons so we could have the caves, pundits. We waged war with ourselves and all we got were these lousy casualties. Is there honor in merit? Well, consider: is there merit in honor? Answer either and you'll be shot for the irony.

Remember what plagued our lands? Good, then tell us. We're nearly out of sitcom reruns to behold. Give us our holiday, what be the enemy's name?

"Us," she'll say in red and gray.

The crowd will panic. And that'll be the end of it. That'll be the last great act of this country. It'll be our ruins, left for the world to behold the first country to go mad with power.

Old Flames X: Borne Into The Sea

I was borne into the sea, like a sailor overboard with a drinking problem and mermaid troubles. I was caressed into the air by the willowy arms of a god that had long forgotten his own problems with the church. I was dashed onto land by the screaming, scraping majesty of a cold air front. This is the wind. This is the bends. This is the end of the world for pessimists.

Imagine a country without borders, a corral without cowboys, a chick without curves. What would we have? Anarchy, surely.

This is ten broken promises counted on ten broken fingers. This is the list of new year's resolutions being used for kindling. This is the breakfast I lied about eating. This is the second drink I've had for lunch. This is the three botched dinners I made you as apologies.

How well are we doing on time? Oh, that bad eh?

Well, then it's too late for lovers' quarrels and fantasies about past lives. We've got a house to build and neighbors to scorn. Why can't we all own pianos? Wouldn't that make things easier? How would we rob and murder each other if each of us were classically trained? If there were symphonies for every block, why would we ever use and abuse each other? Was that a good idea? I actually came up with it as a child. Watch the world get harder.

This is for all the broken casts with penny poetry scrawled into the white paint. This is for the red tape of democracy and the yellow tape of crime scenes. This is for party favors. This is for the old school. This is for the new wave. This is for the sleight of hand in every card deal.

This is for every kid breaking out of their house at night. This is for every teenager breaking into houses. This is for every twenty-something breaking hearts. This is for every thirty-something breaking up marriages. This is for every forty-something and beyond breaking their own promises to themselves.

This is for the rest of us. This is for the nobodies, the somebodies, the anybodies - all everybodies with antibodies. We are now moving matter. We are now making matter. We are now making sure we matter. This is why we move, so we can fill new deserts and taste new oceans.

The saltiest kiss I ever had was a girl's shoulder after a swim. That was one fine summer. She was young and I was young and all we had was youth.

To realize it now, as an adult is tragic: my most battled quality is my perfectionist drawl about being an outlaw. But what if I had my youth again? Would I pray for ivory beds and silky hair? Would I sneak off and abandon my parents? Would I make the most of a bad idea?

These are the questions to ask. These are the answers to beg for. These are the conversations we have with ourselves when we read a good book. These are the lyrics we know to the songs we hum in showers. These are the newspaper clippings I turned into revolutionary themes. How are we crass? We are crass by proxy, of course.

"Oh, now tell us how it ends, young, beautiful murderous thieves."

"In a stage bow, I promise you."

That is grand enough for me, for I have books to read and books to write. But how will I ever write with the future so very much a concern? I will figure it out later!

"Ah yes, famous last words..."

"The most famous indeed."

Well, then this is for the weddings, the funerals and the romantic getaways that fill our lives in constant ecstasy we deny and continuous euphoria we don't believe. That is truly remarkable, citizens of the world. All we ever really needed was tree houses and candles. Everything else is just trim.

"It's settled then. We shall kill ourselves."

"It really seems like the only honorable solution."

So, march forward, brave men and women! We honor your defeat by way of thunderous applause! Hear me now in this cavern!

"He's lost it now."

"If it was ever really there..."

Ah yes, the true nature of wisdom is the ability to talk with ease.

So give me the microphone.

I've got a culture to save.

Old Flames IX: If I Were God

If I were God, I'd pray for better angels. I'd wager all of my feathery white gold on the anarchists that made it past the gate. Saint Peter just wanted to see what would happen with a little graffiti and color. So, let us paint this heaven before tumbling down the splintery ladder to earth. See you on the other side, darling. See you were it counts.

But with longer lashes and sweeter dashes, right? Because how can I rely on an empty wallet? Bash these brains in to see roses. A severed head for a pot, so the grin always glows. Mark(et) my words, I've had it with these wars. I'm done with the class fights and protest rights.

I was in the grocery store tonight and nobody bothered anybody. Everyone stacked their carts with turkeys. Thanksgiving is this week. All I had in my hands was vegetable oil and cookie frosting. What was I then? Can I still be an adult if red wine is all I've got for dinner? Come on, we were the tragic generation? We came from homes that were broken homes a generation before. We came with the stitches already on our body. We came with plaster on our bedroom walls. We came with duct tape and glue. We came into the world sick to our stomachs. We aren't broken. The system is broken. It didn't come out fixed like we did.

So give us our medals, bestow us our pride and give us your thanks for looking at the world like a last meal. Don't hand us the hate, the guilt, the regret, the patriot acts. Don't feed us the lies, the greed, the horror, the dragging curse of a western god. This was our mess. From when we had town halls in school rooms to now, between the sweaty hand and the big red button, this was a final stand against ourselves. But no one will show, you say? Well, we all have flaws and freedoms to give the world just cause for tying us down. It's a wicked world, but it's always been one or the other, and that other world is like one long terrible dinner party.

Now, what is? What shall we all have? Have we questions? We have answers. So, why start making a joke now? Why didn't we always just think this? Why did we have to hate and worry and fear what so many of us all do?

We are all treasures with different values, says the magician.
We are all coins with scratches, says the philosopher.
We are all money, says the kid.

Old Flames VIII: All Gather For This Burial

I'm coming for you, reckless hearts. I'm riding my stagecoach west. But lest we forget you, prayer and politics. We'll ship you out with the coffins. We'll drag you to the coast, to the mountains, to the brink of self-repair, and then we'll burn ourselves alive as martyrs. For what cause? Just 'cause. We ain't fooling this year, this season, this breakdown of days. We've said so much in so little time. Give this next man the podium to speak. He has ideas! He has speeches! He has the world in the palm of his hand! Say what now, bespectacled man? We hardly knew ye. We down the ale and clunk the table, softly dampening the rot of the wood. We'll need that later for shelter, long before we build castles and gods. Sing us to sleep, clergyman. We simply must go on. We should wind through under the city, so we can end up in the better tomorrow. Wait, wait for your beloved. Surely, surely, this is a man who could've fixed Christ. Medic, medic, we've got an apostle here.

Old Flames VII: Shadows Come

Shadows come, bear us the frosty mornings we dream in your darkness for. I have lit all candles and sat on my couch all night. I have waited for starlight demons to dazzle me with coy sleight of hand. Mesmerize me, faintest moon beams. Boon with me with a majestic sorrow, for I have cut up your universe and made you lonelier stars.

From this, I became a summer. I sat in the fields of gold listening to the corn grow and a jazz piano in the winding road. We watched afternoon disappear like an old friend. I wrestled with my morals out beyond the creek with my closest of blood brothers. I paved my way to hell and adulthood with shoes I never wore. Shit knows they came every Christmas.

Oh, darling mistress Christmas, you were good to me as a child and I am easing into the winter holiday as an adult. There is new ingredients in the eggnog and friends by the tree. We all become winter wanderers when the weather outside is something we ain't used to. Give me the pumpkins and stars and four leaf clovers from other holidays. We're cooking a seasonal stew to get warm. Stay eternally warm. We want these clouds we threaded to be throw pillows for when we have guests. Let this house fill itself with guests. So, bring every schoolmate and ex, we're drinking ourselves gorgeous tonight.

Hot damn, blessed be our busted knuckles and wrap them in bandages for when we drink our hottest of sweet ale, to finally go swimming into the fearlessly golden beyond.

Old Flames VI: Hammers & Miles

All I wanted to hear was Peter, Paul & Mary's "If I Had A Hammer" or The Journeymen's "500 Miles." Marching through the swamps and meadows, I shed my clothes to be a better man here in the new west. No knives in my pockets, no powder in my nails, I arrived to be greeted by sunshine and soul songs in countryside. Lord, why couldn't I go back home?

Even in this heaven, even in this messiahless land of washboard words and stick clapping, we are only praying away the spirits of Olde English Rule. Bathe me in the river to make me a moralless man. Whisper love letters to the wind and don't pay the government. Harmony came too softly, lovingly rooting itself in American folklore. We all read it, but we never got the anthems tattooed.

Barrel-chested men stand at the cliffs singing sailor songs for dead mates. God buried them at the bottom of the ocean for the sins of drinking buddies. All desolate friends find themselves in churches when the dearly departed catch the last train home. But after two beers and a handful of songs on guitar, we'll all sniff the gunpowder in our broken fingers, wrecked cracking dry by godless hands. Working the railway or the highway, sweating my guts clean for a savior who won't show, this has always been the murderous lullaby.

Here, a man swings from a tree, and it's up to the writers tell you once they decide if the man is alive or dead. Could be the end of the line noose, could be the childhood tire swing. All I know is I'm miles away from home with just a hammer, so either I build stages or gallows. I can swing my tool in the daylight sprites of wayward youth, as I come down on the nails like I was sealing shut the coffin for the last vampire on the west coast.

In the distance, I hear a train and I grin my dirty pale coating, because I know the right kid got outta the country. We'll watch each other shrink in the distance until we see each other as tycoons. We'll compare our hearts like egos and grind our groin slowly. We are men after all. Only gods for a summer evening, we think. What a long ago waste we missed. Put your arm around me, old friend. I want to see our youth and it'll take everything we both have.

I'll forever be away from home, you know. I'll always have the farmland in my red skillet heart, but I'll always have skyscrapers in my diamond sky eyes. Tender and brash, I'll take my grass stains and drinking problems home when the moon comes to set. Just let me see the coast. Just let me breathe the mist and watch the gulls dive. Let me hear the echoes of rocky beaches and the rolling waves of teenage romance.

Let me start over, for I have doors to open and windows to close. Why do last hope criminals get redeemed when I can't do anything about regrets as a god-fearing realist? This is the chain gang as a yuppie boardroom. All men in suits sing the anthems of dead sailors anyway, you see. From the peak of god to the peaks of man come the afternoon heartache, all watching the sun from mirrors in their heartless rooms.

So, we turned on the music and started laughing. Nothing hurt. Nothing came. We just painted a future for the kids we'd have after the shrugs and giggles got out of our system. Then we became husbands and wives. We became kids all over. We just got the money we needed for our big, big plans. Honey, I've loved you since I was a kid. I just didn't know the right name to write in my journal. But I knew you. I talked about you constantly. I told them you'd come. I believed you'd come. I watched all those folk documentaries and foreign films, so I'd have something good to talk about on our first date. I wanted to impress you. I wanted you to get reckless with your heart. Lord knows I did.

There I go again, carving up the gospel, just so I'd have lyrics or poems to give you. I'd give you all my words if I didn't need them for pillow talk. Let me tell you these stories all over again some day with the right music. Darling, honey, you'd be in for one hell of a surprise.

Old Flames V: Dog Statues

I remember the dog statues at the wavy house at the end of the block. It was the summer I discovered the skin of the country. It was Great America on the speakers. The soldiers always came home and got jobs. Some became artists, clueless knives and all. The books were buried. This was the new white burn. It's just one lost love after another.

So this is the tonic water we taste on our tongues. This is the heartache. This is the crassness. This is how I got through the war of it all. So bury this axe tonight in the skin of the door, all with wood from crosses never carried to the holy ground. Yay, yay, the priests will say, but we'll really know just who would toke a quiet huff in the diamond snuff. And so it became the last letter of broken words, severed at the gut. Mankind, why won't we hear us out?

Just because, that will be the empty chant that'll come back, tar and feathers and all, and we won't fall, we won't even crawl, no matter how lonely we get. Savor the smoke, as we drag through the ashes looking for the keys to Heaven.

This masterpiece is too much to ground, so please serve this to the troops. We have one too many authors writing haikus. Get them on the tombstone to save the canvases for tents. Shall we not die out here, away from city kings, away from poisoned church wells, buried hatchet ivies, more failed graces and dead lovers. Move on, move on, please.

Too many comedians swinging from the balcony, too many loons try to stage for free, and we mostly just let the whos and whats figure it all out. Why can't we play God's grand dice game? What are we, poisoned rats? Awash us, awash us, anoint us harrowed princess and garden graveyard of fairies. This was not the end we played so well. Dig it up, dig it up, we have alibis and grudges to deal like the devil's last poker game. Swear it to live, kid o' gray street almighty. Swear it to all graves here.

Surrender, surrender, I never met our maker. We were us and this was that. We just wanted to call it a wrap. Let's do grand here and now, merry roasters and boasters of drink, here we sleep in one rambling house for a tremendous dream. Sleep well, sleep well, sleep in one grace of now.

Old Flames IV: I Was Sleeping A Mountain

I was sleeping a mountain and coughin' up earth. I slept for days and buried my curse somewhere in Texas, somewhere with a pile of gold and a pistol. We were beggars then. We're bankers now. But we can call it one too many games of three card monty out in the desert. Ride our horses straight into the sunset. But what came? The future rolled with with lighting and thunder, wrecking the dark skies with pale blue and white. So, so pretty, we all said.

But these were days of hot suns and hot damns and the summertime gatherings. Mariners in the lake, darlings in the creek, love awash in dueling streams. There were no need for strings then. No harps, no nooses. We just built our houses with stone. No hanging, no swinging, no playing anthems for choir angels. Though we could use the light, you best ride your horse as fast as you can before the silver screen burns.

This is the future blow, kid. We've got the theaters and the parks for orphan youth to bury the hatchet. We've still got the criminals and crooks. We've still got the roller-coaster that never stops, not in any of us. We've still got the sunsets, the gardens, the fairweather prayers. What was ever wrong with this roof? We could watch the sky send sunshine through skin, breaking the solstice, tickling sparks through the small towns nearby.

I remember these pages of books. I recall these campfire tales of loneliness and grief. No kid grows up wanting a second chance. Why wouldn't we get it right the first time? I looked at my dog once and realized he'd never smoked a cigarette or broken a heart. No one hated him, nobody ever bothered him. I took one last sip of my orange juice and stared at him while he napped. When he woke up, he licked my cheek and everything settled. But, for one night, I figured my dog was smarter than me.

I also remember driving you home in a white dress, I remember losing my heart before my head and I remember coming home with slumped shoulders and a prizefighter grin. I drank honey that summer. I drank cold water. I drank rum in the shade. And that's when I found prayer, though only to the ghosts of history. After too many cigarettes, ask me for a ride home. It's time I should leave.

See you on the other prairie, rhinos.

Old Flames III: The Golen Light of Night

In the bar, there was a mood. Maybe it was a fever. It was scarlet something either way. The dapper yellow dots came from a horn and bounced off the mirror, spilling black notes everywhere, along with the crashing of a melody. We coughed on the gin and told each other stories. She was in pale blue and I was in pale everything. Well, my suit was black, but my soul was ghost white. One too many promises broken to the gods. The worst bookies they were, the lot of 'em. Let the band play, let the friends cheer, let the last drink go down easily. I want one prayer ceremony after another before the Devil finds this dive. We've got a fistful of great days ahead of us and I'm not slipping into a bidding war with the man who steals from the darkest of graves. We could sell our halos for more. So, pry my grip from these tarot cards. We'll see who was dealt a fair hand. Just wait to tip your hat for the bartender still, as he'll be slinging us shots until the end of the world. Drink up, for this soul is all we had and now this fiery glass of regret is all we have. Make waste the cackle, glory in the highest, said the drunken priest. It's just one more man among us. It's just one less god in the world. Can we take home the sky now? This better be the last chant of the tribes of the endless fields and water of the great planet. Now, where were we? Were we in the bellows and howls of the midnight winter slurs? Well, maybe, mariner, you have sailed too far from home. We are value here. Talk to our pirates and chat up our boxers. We have one long journey ahead of us. The cemetery is just down the street, but we'll take the scenic route for a while. Step up, keep up, for this is grand brickwork we tread. Sleep, sleep, says the priest when he can't. This is one harbor stare I won't soon savor. Not enough boats and bells nestling the breeze. And all we did was drink rum inside, laughing cheers to the the battles while heckling our history. This was one long joke told too long. This is last call, folks and mates. Drink up. We have blood on our hands.

Old Flames II: Salting Old Wounds In The Desert

I was halfway to Mexico when I called my mother from a bar pay phone. She let me know that the woods were on fire and I had best flee the country. All fire stops at borders, she told me.

"Thank God we believe in crossin' 'em," I said, spitting tobacco and wiping my chin. "Right, boys?"

Two amigos stepped outta the white Cadillac backseat, sifting through the desert wind and gripping Spanish pistols. This is the land where we come to build angels. Yet this be the pale grim grin of the Devil's teeth, raised of mountains and sunk with bullets.

"One more notch on your belt buckle, Johnny," one ghastly voice will bellow from the Heavens.

And one more song will play, sounding like gun blasts and dynamite lights. Bring out the mariachi band to play us this ballad. Revere the guitars, savor the taste and beg for mercy.

That should've been the end. It truly should've been. But where would the story keep if not spoil in this box without a closed door? So, perk up those ears, this is and was the truth.

I grinded my teeth and cursed my cast bones. This here is a last chance. But, then again, every chance is a last chance. How do you know you're always gonna make it out? There be gangsters and mobsters out there, chums. Slip up the accent and they'll grind your old battle wounds up for soup to feed the prisoners.

So, here, with this desert rough, where castles lay in the sky, a view comes with tears as rain. It's just one more storm to bare, you'll pray, and wait for the gods in a parade of self-pity and self-worth.

Now, what if you just turned up the stereo and hit the gas pedal?

These stories are always better.

GO.