Buzzing street lights in ‘65, while riding down broadway, I saw him raise a fist and knock on air, giving honorary mention, on a sidewalk, with licorice aromatics and things to come; a riot in mind and lost roads yet to try; I was driving down the hours, until the great eruption, the beautiful hydrogen plume, that turned my earliest stages to glass; of misunderstanding.
I chose deep coma puffs for months; hoping for a big bang difference, but saw more of the same, those political chants and the binge melody; spread my head from ear to nose, and dripped to a kneeling pose that hurt the knees; that he created.
There were buses choked with cigarettes and little fires that fumed high on revolution; I inhaled the moment, spiritual avenues of peace, ambience for a dime and phony masters of ‘68, who passed good karma as market produce, picked for it’s grace maybe taste; remembering a twisted paste, twirled around a pipe; I found his holiness smeared with rosin, powdered and heated in delicious spice.
Banging down the hours, in the hallway and on the walls, the musicians in the park, the harmonica boy and a licorice man who posed like Cleopatra, a fist pumped high, finding power far from the action, the corner vacation it had become; one year late and an intersection erupting intolerance; a fascist dialect foaming at the mouth.
It’s murder man, the sacrifice for love’s survival, the astute grew grumpy, coyly taking savage steps for attention, a smiling Buddha danced mediocrity, and the breeze cleaned the streets of licorice lice.
I pledged to mystic beasts, the iconic gods, who gave us head while swaying beads, killing rice cake hero babies, then slurped the carnage. That was the rise in ‘69, the fall of all, you young men, robed preachers; who stole the show. We worshipped your footprints, discovered nothing, but eased each in; so wild were our mouths.
The cold floating fogs in ‘71, let’s drive the dark, close our eyes, seeing cars in stars, luck was far from there, it was over. Time to surrender, the freedom, the ravished femmes, the man with junk, singing ancient song, who lived in trees, who coasted hills, whose licorice taste, his heavenly dreams; visit my nighttime history, and the years we lived.
