1996 Road Movie On the Road part 3

1996 Road Movie, On the Road part 3






Pop Pilgrim into the Comic Sublime

rabbit shape evolving into duck
overhead in the streaming clouds
dime store Indian tumbling,
myth into papier mache
Pecos Bill

fish jumping up stream,
and that house crashing down
speeding down that
Lost Highway
“my own hands carried me there,”

highland clouds
fast moving time exposure
in black and white,
spots of flesh
frenzied mind waking

up in, sleazy hotels
alienated places, western,
abandoned dance hall
for painting studio, thrift shop--
type life,

short order cook in the desert
writing poetry,
have to have a gun?
and a soliloquy-- Hamlet type,
tossing fag end into the fire,

the coyotes howling
at tin trailers,
the fashion model paces,
the old flowered couch,
the train that goes by,

those two guys
always fighting, action off center,
a drink offered in cap from
a bottle of Tiger Rose, a guitar
and rolled cigarette, asleep

in lawn chairs, back on a lonely road,
falling asleep, robbed, left for dead,
someone puts him in the car,
and drives off
the end

of the 20th century Fox, ROAD MOVIE,
speeding past, Uma Thurman
and Matt Dillon, hitchhiking, the
LONG ROAD, ahead the sun in the mountains,
I can’t go on, I will go on, End--

game in the desert
the model limping down the highway,
long shot of that shot out tin can of
beans-- thrown up, again and again--
shot through-- Vegas,

vroooom, rattle and shake, snow and sand,
a tumbling house,
winding through the silent
mountains, the hawks scream,
the crows call,

the lark up high, sweet song
into silence,
James Dean and Jackson Pollock,
enter
this Romantic, West of Moby Dick,

never getting it right, a Run-a-way Train,
Benton and Brando,
the animals and people
weird juxtaposition, like in
Florida,

leaving Long Island behind,
drunk and hopeless, starting for the west
saintly as saints be, “Aw, ‘bean
sober all this time,” even worse--
the expanse of Mojave

Desert, the Sierra,
Mountain, the Pacific
and Big Sur, the sun in the west
camping against the wind,
a dead pelican,

spread in the sand
the large mountainous coast piled up,
the fog rolls in
toward the hills and we, dharma bums
reaching heights, flowers

in fields, the Indian paintbrush, butterflies,
waterfall, carrying
thoughts away-- like wind, Indian designs,
mysteries woven in
blankets, wrapped in crystal silence

shimmer of stars, wind blowing past ears,
rusting car, machine gunned
holes, another drink left untouched--
cigarette stubbed out, years ago
a wilderness

of survival, death and sex, life lost and found,
in desert home
the three legged dog,
the scene through a telescope,
looking backwards, big red bow

on the pretty model,
still limping in high heels,
lipstick smeared on high-way 64,
leopard skin coat and pill box hat,
the Heroine,

the nude in sun, the soft blending of
light, sleeping in
warmth
the shelter
of this goddess,

bosom of nature, discovered, and
come upon cowboy bum,
innocent strut and stylin’,
La Strada’s, Juliet, hidden beauty--
this Oaf

insensitive and all coyote
howl and snarl
Achilles/ Fire, big blaze
on the beach, Mexican extreme
skull and sunflowers,

signs fallen and crumbling,
planting flowers along the way,
a make shift still-life of sorts
the skull and a bouquet
on the movie set, painting,

the pictures, moving
painting out of doors,
the plein air masterpiece,
the dogs,
watching waiting, nervous, marking

out territory, deer sniffing the air
skunk, waddling
on its way, scorpion, in the full moon
spindly shadow
whooping crane dance,

the sexual scene
the violence of the world’s politic,
race, gender--
preference, this weight of reality,
death becomes her,

brooken beauty,
mannequin head, arms
and legs strewn, black bra torn and knotted
gingham shirt, the thrift shop
cowgirl hat and decorator boots,

the flames fanned, scorching Fred Flintstone
rubber mask, in black and white
video of robbed 7-eleven,
hunched on thrown away couch and
smoking campfire in a barrel,

a gold frame,
framing nothing,
hung on the chain link fence,
a torn poster of
the models on the runway,

strut, strut, in Nazi repetition
dominating,
piss images of those
drunkin’ bums, out beyond
the tent, that vicious fellow,

watching ,
the trembling refrigerator box,
dog or
some other animal? looking on, sniffing--
bluesy sound

smoke drift
and waterfall
tumbling

the democratic man,
bearded one, standing o’er
the scene, spokes radiating,
fashion shoot overlooking,
Manhatta--

butterflies, the fashion model’s tears,
“...it could have been
different,” not quite, what one would
have liked--
whooping crane, flies

coyote looks behind leaving,
deer leaping through
car out on a cliff,
revolving shot
advertisement for my soul

Bang!
Tell them-- I'm off to America!

dark
to light
stripes
coming back
on themselves
as serpents
to form
great circles
in a vacuum
of air
the abyss--
at hand

dusk
elegy to light
realization
of the moments
in the garden
the moment
classic
colored
points
to abstraction

in the sun
the jangling diamond

out west, camping,
lending the mountains a story
and Buddha on summit,
cross country speed
in Big Sur blur of wave

crash and boom,
Sutra of sunset
and flower heightened,
moments, flee, the
empty character in the trash can,

white cartoon eyes in black
shadow extending, the
Okies traveling, rutted--ed dream of
America’s
second chance,

the last coast, hung up in the night,
Odysseus, on the road,
the Niagara pouring
mountain peaking poem,
river of soul

wandering bhikku beat,
spirit trip, Indian journey,
living on the land,
hiking in the mountains,
one vast book, of the lost

generations, writing straight
through it all,
painting across America,
at late moment, people float all
are in heaven,

the Apocalyptic end
returning, the naked kid,
chanting in trance, ecstasy,
a returning shaman, Bardic-- magic,
from a sublime tradition,

come down to us
tramping in winter coat, the trash
of deserted places, looking up to the cold stars,
the comet, hitting Saturn or Neptune,
I’ve forgotten which--

if it was a comet? anyway,
celestial apocalypse,
tragedy, catastrophe-- we loved
the world, in our ways,
we believed the world,

could never end,
what evil would
cast, such rumor of demise
meltdown,
watching the end

on TV thinking
I’d never go home again, Mom died,
soon after that, the red flashing,
slow and steady, on the cooling tower,
dandelions grew

long fingers, feet long, and
strange things began happening
to the frogs, everything went on
the wall came down,
the rivers were cleaned,

the population continued
to grow,
women had sextuplets and cheered,
we kept out of the way of conflict,
believing nothing,

crowded out of everywhere, nowhere
to be-- no room now,
for a painting, a picture on a wall,
beside the flood of
transparent, flash,

attached to our eyeballs, lives
before vision, flashing,
snaking, fumbling with weird feeling
genitals wired to images of 1984
here today-- and gone, tomorrow

tomorrow the big bang,
whimpering, in the corner,
a pillow
over ones head, sobbing, we just go on,
figures marching,

toward, a purple ideal, grayed
smudge,
dreams given, to a
new pose,
dragged down HERO--

paint?
I look back to daffodils,
the remembered poem a reflection
in tranquillity,
but I’m on an edge

I won’t quit, on--
on, the WESTERN RANT, the Wandering
Diatribe,
write on, another painting,
workshop between Heaven and Hell,

Sunflower Sutra,
a vision of Blake, vision
of a world, another round, diving to depth,
painting on the beach
against the wind,

the clouds gather
the eye, the first horizon--
from my roost in the forest,
overlooking the lagoon,
blank

square
looked into
Zuni
repetition
sky flashing,
dancing leaves
the sunset,
revolving towards
a future,
of past,
present,
future

some
introduction,
invocation
the muse,
through ritual--

the “c “ before
the chorus, the
coming alive

revolving in crystal
bloom of
seasons mythos
stepping out
into the sun
the Singer
of the Villa, at height
crumbling
idea

moments blown
down the road like tumbleweeds
this look of
what we felt!
symbols crash and burn,
the Stuka’s screaming
dive to firestorm,

questioning, my right to go on?
trying to raise some sun

PAUMANOK WAS THE POEM!

a western shore
snaking,
last coast

“Go now!
--wandering!”