The Dans

Steering with my knees as i light my own cigarette
gold Chevy Nova boats through the dipping, bobbing hills
surfing the waves
of Laurel Canyon

headed away from the stink of the San Fernando Valley
only minutes ago zooming past the Anheuser-Busch factory
closed vents and plugged nose
shielding white plumes of
caustic, chugging reems of hops and malt barley
chimney smog
punched through the canyon
into the fresh air
on the other side

out searching for a mystery taco stand
tongue and skull meat
cheek and
anus?

to meet up and hang with Danny, Dan, Daniel, Dave and Alex
eat and smoke weed in Dave’s Mom’s van
to listen intently for hours and hours to
Esquivel
Mingus and
John Zorn on that fantastic stereo
then, the 6-cd changer
click
slots into place
and something awful like
squirrel nut zippers
sends us

piling out into the world again
pouring ourselves down the block like soapy water after a hand wash in the driveway
coursing
turbulent
fluid and steady
single file

to Dan’s back yard

staring up at that one old star
familiar to us
a lonely pinhole in the gray bearded Los Angeles night sky
that may or may not be a helicopter
and we pray to it in silence, the five of us sharing a single prayer
that we may all never die

but one of us will
even if we don't know it then

six years from now
half a year gone missing
amphetamine halo over his caved skull
Dan will appear
he will
show up at the steel door of Vulcan Studios,
San Leandro and High Street
a ghost
in four pairs of socks and no shoes
the entirety of his hundred pounds
25 years old and shrunk to nothing,
a cowering existence shoved in a sack
his luggage a black garbage bag over one bony shoulder
silently begging for help
looking desperately into our eyes
blink...blink...blink
please tell me who i am
who i was
confirm that i breathe
affirm something
anything
what is in here
this deepening black
and we will all peer inside
the soul
is a deep, dark well

calling down from the surface to him
only timid whimpering
no words
just a child left behind
given in to that sinister sickness

we can’t bring him out
no doctor
or parent
or shock therapy
or drug
can

temporarily, he will be pulled out into light
a shell though
a transparency
drowning in that fountain of
black ink

he will be
released
only by stepping in front of Amtrak 785 Pacific Surfliner
on a beautiful summer's day
after begging for Alex to bring him a pistol
rushing to Union Station
not fast enough
his thin body will explode into a million pinhole stars on the nose of a commuter train

his father the last to see his
face?

everyone will cry
heaving their torsos wildly round his coffin
but i stand alone, unfazed
imagining scattered pieces of Dan inside that box
i will not feel death then
i question, and still question more, my ability now
to know

force out tears of smoke at the mausoleum
mimicking others
dragging myself out
drawing a sadness too primal to be expressed in

that was not mine to keep
i found it lying in a corner pile of marijuana ash and soot, with television ads, comedy albums and family photos

we, my people, are not a people who
show these things, but we describe them to ourselves
in myriad mythologies
on graph paper
alone with those we love, all agreeing not to be understood

demand to fucking be
and do something for a change
find something for a change
there must be more than this

i SCREAMED at him
angry at his betrayal
cried for the first time since his body hit that train
started crying and never stopped
my friends then around me, holding me and each other, at Dan’s feet
we cried together for the last time

and that will have been
a long time ago
the pinhole stars a distant memory

i will never talk to Dan, or the rest, again
but I will think of them often
more out of respect for the fallen
than for the people they will become, the love I will still have for them
and always will

Lonely Heartbreaker

i am the lonely heartbreaker
i spend my time writing in this little book and testing my vision to see how far i can see
i look out on these mountains and big blue skies filled with clouds
and jinx myself
trying to figure out the why of everything when i should be
working out the how of this little universe of me
there are no mysteries greater than that
and nothing will come of a life spent tricking yourself into thinking you are more than this
looking in the bathroom mirror every morning
i am a cartoon character
and around me is a three dimensional world
i am stuck in a movie where i am the only thing that doesn’t know it’s in a movie
the shelved books i never read
all the rotting vegetables i will never eat
women i will never make love to
friends to who i owe apology but will never give that priveleged information that i am flawed and sad and
i remain an enigma to myself and to the vegetables i will never read, make love to or...

maybe i will make love to a vegetable today
or just look harder within myself
past the skin pocked and marred, cancer-riddled and gossamer thin
past the eyes set deeper than i ever remember seeing them
seeing sight, thinking thought, tasting my tongue, breathing
i may not be alone if i can find myself under all this rubble
that will be the day, the day when i die
thank you, buddy holly
i love you still despite everything
thick frames and gone away
i love you still buddy holly
all the blame and shame i carry to others’ graves
i may sell off to a local pawn shop to get that few bucks to spend
on a new pen and a new little book
so i can toss out the old one and write a new mystery i might never understand
about this, my foreshortened life