it was precisely 9:17 p.m. when i realized I hadn't written anything in months

I looked outside and counted the burnt out street lamps,

thought of all my friends that burnt out too early

and worried that age might be stealing my grit.

Flacco Jimenez played his accordion in the background

and I plucked a few piano keys but nothing stirred.

There were many things in that spanish music that I did not understand

while there were things that music translated flawlessly,

that reminded me of sweating beneath the stage lights

that faded in and out and drew lines in the dry ice;

the smiling, stoned little hippies spinning in torrents of glee

while we gave them

every

last

drop.

I felt like I might start itching for yesterday and since I was too old to refuse to repent

I’d remember and write.

I’d slip down in the storm drains of my memories like I did with the Architecture majors at UVA

and scour the lengths beneath the city

looking for dirt and grime and musk and sweat below the city streets.

Sit out by a barrel fire beneath the seventeenth street bridge,

smoke joints with the homeless,

pound beer until eight then go on stage

and get lost in that familiar haze of improv and jam.

I caught myself smiling at the memories.

I use to spit out rhetoric like Allen Ginsberg and howl just as well

and mean something to whoever was listening,

wake up the next morning thankful it was recorded

because there was no way I’d remember all of that.

At least I did it then, thank God I did then

because it would kill me now.

Those old days are like a classic joke that nobody but me really understands,

and I don’t mind mind patting myself on the back

for being the only that “gets” it.

Reviews

[Kelly Scheppers]

One could drown within the awe of this...it reads like a book I never want to put down.

High five, my friend!

[andrew mitchell]

what a classic write so enjoyed and read like a narrator. top stuff

[JC]

I can relate to this, that reminiscing the blurred madness chaos joy of younger times and seeing how beautiful and tragic it was, with this stirring always to go back full force cause hell we read madmen, we listened to them play the deepest tunes, make the best movies and they did it, why can't we....but then that realization is there of a happiness in a lucid reality and the knowing of all the pain that truly exists in that past along with the good that a lot of can't be remembered...Townes Van Zant once said " There is purgatory...hell...then the blues..." really dig your writing.

[Alfred Kukitz]

Sitting at 11:20 am sifting through your mind. I kinda like your drifts into nowhere. We are allies in the old foolish ways when young met madness only to dance the night away!

Great write!

Regards,
Al

[jacob erin-cilberto]

love the reference to Ginsberg's "Howl"--

i am so glad to read you this late night...i can relate so much to this piece.

lately the music feels off to me...like i hear the beat, but the words just won't come smoothly like they used to...

i feel stuck somewhere on a poetic detour...like i am writing crap...and Ginsberg or Ferlinghetti would both turn away, disgusted.