Pomes for the Lone Cowboy
“Common sense misunderstands understanding. And therefore common sense must necessarily pass off as ‘violent’ anything that lies beyond the reach of its understanding, or any attempt to go out so far.”
1.
It is difficult to see the end of things. Inherently, it’s damn near impossible. But at least I can see, in my “mind’s eye,” all the contours of smiles strewn upon the faces of dead friends. Each of them, as friends, as physical and meaningful morsels of friendship, were ends in themselves. Until their very ends. I can . . . oh boy, it’s not an exaggeration to say that I can feel the vibrations of their laughter, still ringing beside me, and . . . if I close my eyes real tight, and imprison my breath into hot cheek-balloons, and listen all too close, I can even hear our last conversations. Clearly, distinctly.
But I need a mug of coffee for it to make any sense.
2.
It is 8 am in the morning and I’m sitting at my writing desk, writing a letter for the first time in ages. Here’s what I am writing:
In the grand scheme of things, we are all here for a rather short time, a cosmically infinitesimal amount of time. It is terrifying to me how short and how quick it will all be over. Yesterday I was a mere toddler, learning Arabic in Cali beachside classrooms, and jumping out of aeroplanes, landing inside of overcrowded dugouts in the frigid plains and fields and mountainsides of America’s backyards. And today, well, today I am preparing to publish my fourth book. Can you believe it? I can’t, and I won’t. Not until it’s over, not until I’m wrapped in a cascading wreath-bed of flowers — bright crimson roses and matte tulips and coral, pinky carnations — wrapped in a cocoon, and — will you light this, please? — set ablaze to die.
{ { { how will this death turn out? } } }
It will be yet another terribly written book.
And that stupid fact makes me smile, boundlessly.
3.
While speaking with an old pal, Jack Kerouac, I pulled out my vape and pulled, puffed out a thin cloud, and asked him, “What exactly is the meaning of poetry?”
“You’ve studied Whitman, haven’t you?” he asked.
“Not officially,” I said, “but yea.”
“Well then . . . the hell you mean, officially?” he barked.
“I didn’t st — I mean, I didn’t take any classes on him, academically speaking.”
“Well,” Jack said, rolling his eyes, “officially, unofficially — however you’ve studied him, you should’ve already bought into his idea that poetry is a yawp.”
“A yawp?”
“Yes. A yawp, you dummy. One huge wailing, whopping, rolling, celebratory and confused, moaning yawp over and toward the being of mankind!”
His friend Parker — Bird Parker — was bellowing out a cherry-sweet tune on his saxophone, in a corner of my living room. He was playing something new, something we hadn’t heard him play before.
Bird’s eyes, as usual, barely open yet omniscient of every moment in the room, were glittering, and his cheeks were big and round and swollen, as he blew into his sax. His fingers, the fat worms they are, were slowly riverdancing upon the keys. At times, bouncing even. And every so on those wormy fingers would sally all the way up, then slide all the way back down.
As Bird continued to play, Jack was rolling his big head around, as if in a dumb trance. Then, during one long crooning mew of the sax, he cried out, “GO THOU ACROSS THE GROUND, YOU BIRD!”
I was tired, so I got up from the couch and sauntered back to my bedroom to fall asleep.
4.
As the chill sensation from the hemlock crept up to his waist, Socrates looked up and whispered: ‘Crito, we are owed nothing but this very moment, yet we owe everything. Do pay it. Don’t forget.’
‘Of course’, said Crito. ‘Do you want to say anything else?’
There was no reply, but after a while, Socrates’ body turned and gave a slight stir. Crito saw that he was now dead. He closed his mouth and eyelids, and wept.
