And a stranger comes barging in from the past,
And yet not so much a stranger as patron saint
Or memory, faded now to sepia tones.

And comes the theif under cover of night
To hold a ransom high o'er head. To burn.
Lapping with firey tongues of silver and green.

Until the morning sunlight brings the quenching dew,
To halt the ravaging of my countenance,
Blackened by unwarranted despair.

Of Bus Trips and Revolutions and All That

I never met Neal Cassidy. I was born far too late for all of that whole scene. I had friends who spoke to Ken Kesey on the telephone merely weeks before he died. I was born a little too late for all of his scene too. Too late for that scene that he and Neal birthed in all their pains and goings on about this country...the birthing pains of a generation of intrepid travellers. I was born too late to really be a traveller. Garcia....dead. Leary....dead. Kesey.....dead. Cassidy.....been dead for decades now. Immortal.
We tried so very hard to travel in the manner of all those intrepid failures....absolutely beautiful failures. Failures of the highest caliber is what all that scene had turned into. That doesn't mean that they hadn't struck onto something with their conciousness expansion and their brotherly, sisterly, lovely love thing. It was all well intentioned, just a little too early....or maybe late....either way, it was all a matter of mistiming that resulted in a generation of disillusioned hipsters clamoring for a way off of the bus.
Only....there is no way off. Once a man has taken it in his mind to climb aboard such a vehicle, he can try and climb off all day long and only then will he realize that it will take a whole lot of road rash, and blood, and broken fingers and toes, and skinned knees, and all the like before he finds himself all in a pile on the hardtop street, just waiting for someone to come and scrape him up off the pavement and reshape him into something that can be put to use roofing houses or digging ditches or doing hard time or something of the like.
I refuse to be one of these people. I tried the whole travelling thing....no, not on a bus mind you.....but I will always be on the bus with Mr. Kesey....Captain flag and the rest of them have departed for parts unknown....Dr. Leary called it the ultimate trip.
I am one of the travellers, but where the last generation of seekers failed in a spectacle that crippled the nation for decades ( a crippling effect that continues to be a problem to this very day mind you ), I have taken a private journey and aim to succeed. You see, the problem with the whole hippy adventure is that these well intentioned bastards went about it all in the wrong way. These people tried to transform this nation in total disregard to the kinds of growing pains that such a radical change could cause in a nation of this size....with out considering the implications should their little experiment actually gain some momentum.
Needless to say, the little experiment did indeed gain a bit of momentum. All of this speed and independence culminated in what is now referred to only as "Kent State". You see....the nations immune system had decided to purge itself of this disease.
I, on the other hand, intend for my transformation of this great nation to come more slowly than all of that. I have transformed myself. I have friends that have transformed themselves. Now all that must be done is that which is constantly done by human kind all throughout all of prehistory ad infinitum. Procreation. One must first change himself and then focus on those in direct contact with him....then simply wait. Have kids, have a wife, and a family and wait. Let nature run its course. Teach your children. Be kind to your neighbors. Live for today, simply and within your means. Love each and every person around you. Selflessness and the like.

Sounds simple I know. Should one succeed and his children succeed and their children succeed. In 50 years, this place may be ready for a revolution the likes of which Kesey and Cassidy and the Bus and all of that could never have imagined.

West

In West Texas ever'thing is a little bigger. Just as the land rises the hundreds of feet up the escarpment and the plains open up in back, forty miles to the horizon from such a high vantage point, and the plains open up in front, a thousand feet higher now but still flat as far as a man can see, pock-marked only by rocks, mesquite, and the snaking water in the occasional blue river -- so blue but so small... merely a stream in any land with more moisture than this desert -- a man can get to feel as though he were tiny, capable of only but the smallest of things.

Everything a man can get his hands around will turn to sand, dust in this God-forsaken heat. Ashes to Ashes they say, no where has it ever held more true.

Here a man has room to be Huge, legendary in stature, free to carve out canyons with a stroke of an axe, lakes with a shovel full....only here, there are no trees large enough to build a house for such a man, there are no trees large enough to construct such an axe handle. Only twisting, angry old mesquite trees make their homes here. A man has plenty of room...no one could ever doubt that. Yessir. A man has room to be a regular giant in these parts. Only no man ever could.


As he steps out into the heat, his eyes closed as much from the dust as from the sun, a man can get to feelin' baked within minutes...seconds...in these parts. A man can just get the dust offa his jeans, outta his hair and mouth, no sooner'n he's covered again. Slowly bein' buried by the wind, all the while the sun doin' its baking, all the while the rivers still meagerly flowing out across the plains, down the side of the escarpment and off to try and find some shade somewhere in parts east....pine trees and swamp land is much more accommodating for a river, it can be assumed.

No, this place, here west of ever'thing 'cept maybe the Rocky mountains, is far too dry, far t o o remote to really be a place to become one of those giant people of legend. This happens to be the kind of place where there is plenty of room to be a giant son-of-a-bitch but where no one will ever see you, no one will ever hear your story, no one will care. This desert happens to be one of those places where even giants are tiny when taken in context, where everything a man accomplishes is still just dust....even legendary things are dust once this baking sun, and the sand and wind get done with 'em.

This place just don't seem conducive to much at all 'cept dying and maybe dryin' out a bit. Like if ya been in the rain too long...just step on over to that place where there are no more trees, no shade to hide under, and not a cloud to be seen save some far far off in the distance ( those'll never get here you know...this is a place where no clouds go) and sit for a while bakin' in the sun like. There's no trouble gettin dry 'round these parts. No trouble at all. Thats the kind of things that this land what built for. By God's own hand... a cursed dryer built right on into the side of this planet...all dust and bleach white bones.

There's one thing to be said about the dust and the sand and the gnarled old mesquite trees, hard as nails as they are, they can abide. In all this land they are the only things, save snakes and horn'd lizards and gila monsters and the likes (nightmare things that went and come to life in this wasteland), that can really abide. Ever' thing else in these parts turns to dust. Maybe not today...maybe not for fifty years...but ever'thing here will be buried and then the dust and the sand set to work what with the grinding and the pressure, turning everything to their likin', rending everything unrecognizable at the least. In the end, in this land, it will always be the dust that truly survives...this dust that consumes all things...this dust that covers all.

Short Bed Truck

I drive a little red truck.

A beat up, rickety, red truck that sits in my driveway leaking fluids and grease in a plethora of reds and browns, blacks and grays. A toxic rainbow runs from my customary parking-space and into the gutter, deeper and deeper through the storm drain, and into the watershed. I feel badly about this. There is little I can do.

There are several lights on the dash that flash and blink at me incessantly. I have no idea what they mean. Esoteric symbols,some sort of car code that I haven't the faintest clue how to interpret. I am lost and in desperate need of a Ford Motor Company Rosetta Stone. The owners manual would suffice. I have no idea where that happens to be.

The left hand side is scratched and beaten and starting to develop cancerous rust spots that threaten to devour all exposed metal. The thin coat of oxidization slowly expanding into gaping holes. Ominous orange mouths, the color of Texas clay or the filter on a Camel cigarette, foretelling the doom that has already begun to devour the maroon body. I laid the truck over on this side once. A spectacularly unimpressive two car accident during the course of which I mis-steered and ended up with my ear against pavement where my drivers side window should have been. I didn't realize that there was no legal left turn lane. It was my own damn fault. Chalk it up to carelessness.

The engine has begun to emit a plethora of clicks, pings, knocks, clanks, and other sounds which I cannot here begin to describe. The noises do not worry me anymore. I can tell, by any change in severity or volume, if the condition of the engine is deteriorating any further. I will be worried if one day these noises actually stop.

The brakes don't function properly. You have to pump them like a maniac until just enough pressure is built up to slowly come to a stop without locking the back wheels and sliding into the Dr. Pepper truck sitting at the redlight just past the freeway off-ramp. Granted, this can be a bit tricky.

It beats walking at any rate.

Don't Patronize Me Sir...This Is A Library

Sitting here at my desk I often get to watching the people stroll past. I am but a moment in their respective lives. For some I am a part of their daily routine, every night around the same time strolling up to the desk with an armful of educational materials. Idle chit-chat ensues.
"Hey...how's things?"
"Oh decent....and you?"
"I'll survive I suppose."
"Thats good."
All the while I sit behind my desk, eyes darting back and forth from my patron (that's what we call them in the library business...not customers, patrons) to my computer screen, avoiding more than a few seconds of direct eye contact. It can get to be a bit much.

Then there are those that wander in appearing dazed and intimidated by such a collection of actual facts and information. Bleary eyed and slow they wander in, lingering about in the area in front of my desk, to the stairs, visually scanning up and down, up and down.
After about fifteen minutes of this I usually brace myself for the worst. Sometimes I am forced to speak with these individuals. This patron is fairly easy to spot and thus I am, more often than not, prepared for any inane question regarding the location of the comic books (which we do not have) or the location of the nearest vending machine. Said patron usually plans on purchasing a package of Cheesy Doritoes and an Orange soda and sitting just within my sight to slurp and crunch away, all the while getting cheesy crumbles on the libraries copy of The Communist Manifesto and "Vegan Monthly". Naturally I point this individual in the direction that most hinders their quest for said refreshments. No, not because I hate stoner fucks. No, not because I hate dirty vegan hippies. (Although now that the subject has been raised....damn I hate dirty vegans....hippies are cool enough but...)
You may think it is because I am just a mean spirited bastard. You'd think so...but You'd be wrong.
I point this person in the wrong direction because.....well....no it's because I'm a mean bastard. But don't be that guy. Come to the library with a thirst for knowledge. Come with a burning desire to tear through books like some kind of worm that tears through books.
I just get tired of dealing with people that a) think I'm their best buddy because I suggested a book that would compliment their reading choices, or b) come into the library with no idea how to look up a book or even what type of book they need. I will address these issues individually:

A) I am not your friend just because I reccommend reading to you. I work in a library...thats what I do. A stripper is not your lover just because grinds your crotch into a bruised mass beneath your jeans. They guy at the library is not your new best friend just because he suggested a book you might like. I have friends...I don't need more.

B) We are in college. I should not have to show you how to use the card catalogue. As a matter of fact, if by this point you cannot research a paper without someone walking you through step by fucking step, it is because you made the choice not to learn it in every English class you were forced to take from 3rd grade until the present. You must now languish in your ingorance...you will get no help / sympathy from me. May God have mercy on your pathetic souls.

Anyways....I think I got off topic....topic?

Oh, Brave New Whorl.....

Poetry is but a new prosthesis

On which depends survival of the soul.

Where once kings placed Truth upon the masses,

A relative concavity takes hold.

Truth is but a construct of upbringing,

And right is but another form of wrong.

So becomes that faith is self-deceiving

And so becomes that noise can be called song.

In these waters tempests are the normal,

Foundations of a fortress often sand.

Often times a man can lose his footing

And find himself upon the earth again.