I'm sitting here soaking in all the light from those red, blue, orange and green neon signs that hang about touting the virtues of this or that liquor or beer or malted beverage, and all wanting me to drink up and be merry and stay sharp until the time comes along all stumbling in a drunken daze when she helps me up and over the steps and into the cab. I sit, head banging against side window glass as the thumpty thump of tires over potholes and ruts continues on into that orange night. Finally, stopped outside of this old green and brown garage apartment with its roof all sagging and walls all crooked at every angle but true and windows starting to crack all under the strain of such unsquare happenings in the plain sight of day, the cabbie gets his thirteen-fifty from soft hands with nails all painted pretty and pink. And my wallet goes sliding back down into dirty blue denim pants pocket. The lingering touch sending shivers up to the nape of my neck, and all the time I hear a faint ringing in my ears.

And awaking to afternoon's alien shadows streaming in through window shades, all vinyl and yellowed from time and that acrid smoke and all those people covered in dust coming in and out and always wanting only to talk until finally there is nothing left to be said and they make their way out the crooked door, leaving dusty, crooked foot prints from worn down, crooked boot heels. Into the silence left in their wake, only the sobbing sounds coming from closed bathroom doors and the static hiss from that television with no channels and full volume and all the random chatter filtering in through all those cracked and dusty windows and coming in all through the termite infested walls until the only thing you can hear is the crazy intensity of it all with no distinct shape or form. It becomes a screaming at the top of lungs without any tongue, all mush mouthed vowels and no sense to be made of it all. And always there is that ringing in my ears.

And eventually you get used to all the idle chatter, madhouse scenes, and all the crazy people always coming to and fro and all those people in the streets giving sideways looks at all the impropriety flowing forth from those blue eyes and all those little nothings whispered now at full volume from across the room, across the street, for all the world to hear.

Talking Pictures

I always did talk too much. Every time. Sitting there with a circle of friends, everyone getting real cool, real calm. There in the back of my mind is this chattering, incessant chattering trying to drown out all those things that I was trying to focus on: the voices of those around me, the music, the cool air, all those good things washed away by this raging torrent of inane questions and crackpot answers all floating there in the back of my mind and just screaming to get up and out of the front of my face by any means available whether that be in the form of a scream or horrific head explosion or worse. It is in this fucking mind that I was born and in this mind that I will live my life; screaming out above the cacophony, trying just to be heard, to be noticed above all the noise.

But really.....all that is just bullshit. What noise? It's me. The noise is inside of me. And how do you get rid of something like that exactly? Fuck.

And in this way I that I wake up everymorning to a hurricane of questions and the noisy ass answers and all that chatter chatter chatter. Right off the bat they start up with ethical queries and notions about the true nature of the time-space continuum, and all those kind of things that only the crazies ever think about. At any rate, they are the only ones talking about it.

Morning

I step out slowly into the cool morning air, my breath condensing there before my eyes in a little puff of white. It is swept away by the light wind that blows now from the north and west. Always from the north and west. As I make my way down the drive I pause and take a drag of that hand rolled smoke I have come to be so fond of on winter mornings such as this.

Slowly inhale. Slowly out.

Smooth and calm I make my way the last couple of steps down the drive, my boot heels clicking on the black top. The slowest of cadences, keeping time for no guitar, no gypsy songman, no one but my self and all those little thoughts that are so lovely dancing in my head on winter mornings such as this. As I make my way down that quiet stretch of American blacktop, all lined with mailboxes and little brick 2 and 3 bedroom houses with medium-size family sedans and pickups in the driveways and little children - 2 and 3 years old - all sleeping in the early hours while moms cook breakfasts and dads read papers that the young man threw onto their doorsteps or else maybe into the bushes only hours earlier, just before the sun began to peek its head up above that distant line that is the horizon and up over the tops of all those oaks and pecans that call this land their home, I smile and enjoy the little bit of solitude that I have come to relish on these my winter mornings.

As I reach the sign at the end of the road - STOP! it cries in fire engine red - I swing a slow right and walk on down along the ditch, my boot heels crunching softly over leaves of gold and orange and yellow and a multitude of browns. I take another drag of that smoke....all warm and sweet inside. And inhale another breath of winter air....all cool and crisp there in the depths of my chest. And walk on down that road. After about five minutes of this slow and steady walk that carries me down into that roadside ditch and back out and across that empty blacktop and over those dotted yellow lines and into the fields that stretch on and on up and up into the hills all dotted with reds and golds and yellows and oranges, I come to that place where I can sit and look out on all of this and just smile.

By this time, the sun has shown itself fully, still small and pale when one thinks of all that fury of only a few months prior. Now, over the tops of all those trees that seem to have stole a bit of its arrogant buring color, the sun sits and waits. This is not its time. This is the time of that wind from the north and west, and with it comes the cold and ice that greets a man every morning as he steps out into this his world and smiles. This is the time when all those Canada honkers fly low in that great big V and announce to the residents of the southern parts of this country that they have arrived in all their grand style. This is the time when, if a man listens close enough, he can hear all those sounds from far far away - a soft rustle of cat tails from the pond down the way, the cows in the fields over the next rise. Sounds that never would reach a man in all that shimmering heat of summer now ring out clear in the heavy cold.

And from up above me, I hear that distinctive chirp chirp of that red bird that only shows his face around these parts once summer has gone and moved south and the winds have carried him down into the oak thickets that call this land their home. And all around me the Robins and the Jays and all the other winter visiters that I enjoy begin to make their songs and souls heard loud and clear across this expanse of cold winter morning. I sit here underneath the biggest oak tree I can find and smile and breathe in and out and listen close and live and die and sing with joy. All in a morning. I am alive.