nick drake on a saturday night
he was 26
dead in his bedroom
at his parents' house
in england
in november, 1974.
i'm listening to "river
man" & i want
to cry, to break down,
to tumble from
the self i know
as me like a pyramid
of side-loosening sand.
there is no suicide note.
over-dose of an anti-
depressant
starts with a "t":
look it up
in nick drake's
bio on a
web search.
dead at 26
in 1974.
fuck.
existence is pain.
truth
i'm writing death poems.
we're fighting.
i'm a fuckhead. well,
it's not fighting ,
it's more tension.
we're tensioning.
overwhelmed by tension
i'm impatient, wild.
slam a door.
skid out
of the parkinglot
in the jeep --
just a little.
i ease off the gas
suddenly realizing
the power, the catch.
drive around about
15 minutes.
drive back
home.
that was last night.
we haven't resolved
a thing, & it's
all my fault.
fuck the truth
nothing i utter
approaches the true
condition. surface
surface surface,
that's
all.
to work my mind
into a frothy lather
of anger or understanding
is not the issue.
we are broken.
it's like i'm loving you
over some
wide chasm
of emptiness.
thousands & thousands
of years ago earth
cracked open,
& there is this
side
& there is
that side.
no moon burns
down tonight,
just black
blackening
sky.
we
are
echoes. listen.
guzzling
half of the two windows
on either side of the door
are lit with beer-signs.
it is 7:08 in the morning,
& i'm not sure the place
is open, but i park the buick,
step out into
a nearly empty parkinglot.
blue sky day,
almost a chill in the air.
surprising to find
entering the bar is so easy,
not a locked door
without a soul
inside. jukebox is rolling.
a pretty girl bartender
calls me hun.
what can i get you hun
she says. it's probably been
10 years since i've stood
at this bar-top: the barmaid
was a little
scrawny girl
then. not bud,
i laugh,
looking up to see
bud signs everwhere
above the coolers.
i spot the green
of rolling rock.
a 12-pack of rolling
rock
i announce. a few eyes
are on me.
old retired
early morning drinkers.
hound-dog
faces,
bloody eyes. see them
with a micro-
second
glance down the bar.
it's been a very
long workweek,
but i'm smiling
with very cold
cans on the
car-seat,
getting
back
home.
walking
up
our steps.
cracking
the
tab.
throwing
my old
head back.
incredible
three thirty three
i see in red digits
on our black alarm clock.
hardon like a
tented poplar
tree in breeze vibration.
i did wake at one
& went down to check
mail (junk), but
returned to
the black
bed, exhausted.
you can't believe
how long it's been
i've slept until
three thirty three
in the afternoon.
stupid head's been humming
at one,
one thirty.
up. irrevocably.
man i slept
until three thirty
three, & that
means more
than i can say
here, to you.
oh christ
almost 48 years old
& i'm telling you
about my tented
poplar tree
hardon.
back to the poem
it's as if shaking one's head
fast, pivot'd behind the jawbone,
clears
things to a white screen.
now the poem
is composed
syllable
by syllable.
a word
is a room,
a black speck
in a white room.
that black speck
now has wings,
& they
flap
upon a blind-eye'd
bust.
we begin sweating.
something is wrong.
everything,
everybody,
pools into
a black past.
click to view movie/poem - eggs