SONGS OF THE JOURNEY 

            I

I never want to work again.

I do not want to hold a job.

 

I want

to be immersed in breathing

 

to the point where explosion and implosion

are possibilities as real as a firefly

 

flying alone at night looking for love.

What I want

 

is to never feel stuck

in a life I do not want to live.

 

            II

What if my rig breaks down?

Inevitably, it will. And

what if everything breaks down?

 

Everything always falls apart

eventually, and what then?

How do I replenish

 

what needs replenishing?

Like my inexhaustibly hungry belly?

 

Which I like to fill with delicious things

such as,

ironically enough,

 

pork belly—

the thought of filling one belly

with another belly—smoked

cured and crisp, though not too crisp—

is perverted and exciting—I like the fat

to be soft and sizzling, almost elastic

with a tiny bit of crunch and grit

on the edges

and I like so many other things

and they don’t all have to be ironic,

such as

 

the seas and the oceans

or rather

what lives in all that water,

 

its grime and its slime.

Oh how I love the idea

of having the oceans

in my belly

preferably raw

 

to be pregnant with the flesh

of the sea.

 

            III

All of it has a price

 

and the price is my head.

The price is my soul.

The price is my heart.

The price

whatever it might be

is too damn expensive.

I do not have it.

My pockets are empty.

 

The confession booth

is overstuffed with soft tissue

stacked to the ceiling.

 

And you can call me lazy

if it makes you feel better

I know I am not lazy.

 

I love work even,

the sweat, the kitchen, the groveling,

the shoveling all day

moving the manure from the pigpen

to the chicken coop

in the sun, in the rain, I don’t mind,

 

yet, here’s the deal:

I do not want to be stuck

in a place

 

doing one thing,

living one thing,

being one man.

 

            IV

To live it all is to live

non of it at all,

to not live one thing to its fullest,

 

I am

traveling with barely a cent

to my name

from one coast to the other

and what will I find there?

More life. More work.

 

The process starts over

again

wherever and whenever

 

it is all so fucking boring

it seems

like no matter how far I go

I am attached

to my bank account

to my landlord

 

it is all an addiction,

a malady,

a god damned angry squirrel

 

hiding nuts all winter long

just to get run over by a car

on the first day of spring.

 

V

When I was a young man,

I dreamt that some day

I would live in a trailer on the beach

 

somewhere, anywhere really,

where I could daydream

all day long and love life and sing

songs to myself and be happy.

 

That one-dimensional dream

of a life by myself

is like a breeze of sea salt

in the sun

with oysters for breakfast.

 

VI

I know now, of course, that

that is not possible.

Poetry cannot be written

 

in a vacuum, and by vacuum

I mean what I do not mean

and it is the Goddess

 

of which I speak, she,

goddess that she is,

leaves me alone for she has better things to do

with her time.

And I don’t blame her.

 

My muse in my case, is a man.

A man in working boots

steel-toed and falling apart.

My muse is a man

with callused hands

and a manly beard

and he does manly things

 

with his time. These songs

are not for sissies

man or woman alike

you must rise above your humanity

when you perceive the words

which you feel the need to speak or sing

 

and somehow come back

to your humanity

to write them down.

 

VII

And by vacuum I mean

simply what I mean

in that poetry cannot be created

in the midst of nothing

because the muse

is really the world around you

the world inside of you

as it reacts

to the world outside of you—

the ego masturbating in public

on a public stage

man or woman alike

whilst being doused in wine

and fresh wet shit at the same time.

 

There needs to be audience.

There needs to be a lover.

There needs to be another.

 

And by poetry

I mean life,

the life that is truly yours

and rightfully yours to live.

 

*******

 

NOW YOU SEE IT, NOW YOU DON’T

One of the first proponent
of what is often referred to as Socialism
by many,
was a loud mouth Jewish son of a carpenter
in a small Roman province on the Mediterranean Sea
where he was executed by the authority
for the crime of sedition;

then a few hundreds years later
he was promoted to the role of divinity
for the same crime
by different authoritative figures
who were really just the same
for his message had gone out of hand
and the time had come to take charge of his fables,
twist them just so,
so that the words might serve the few and control the masses.

 

**********

 

THE BLIZZARD

The First Officer warned

the Captain of a storm to come.

 

The Rollin’ Chateau churned

up the mountain

precipice on one side

and threatening boulders

on the other

 

and sure enough

he hadn’t even swallowed his breath

that a million angry

minuscule polar bears flying in the air

at incredible speed

smashed in the windshield

nonstop for several hours

 

bleeding out icy strings of crystals

clear as could be

and cotton white all the same.

 

The crew took it as best they could

and kept on up and down the mountain

until the blue skies opened up

and new troubles lay ahead
but for now,

the songs of peace were singing

a blues number

something from somebody’s rusty trunk

about a love gone wrong

 

and another gone right

and that someday,

the road will end.

 

************

 

THE WHEEL OF PROGRESS

 

The leaders of the movement

of the oppressed

once they fight and win the battle against

the oppressors

more often than not

become the new oppressors.

 

That is why it is better for democracy

to be a slow grinding machine

a great big giant wheel

moving along the right path slowly

and often time, dreadfully,

allowing for plenty of debate and opinions

from all.

This way the oppressors

and the leaders of the movement

of the oppressed

can get grinded up together happily

or not

into the same giant wheel of progress.

 

************

 

PITCHFORKS II

 

When faced with a multitude of angry pitchforks

the amount of money in your bank account

doesn’t matter anymore, the money

belongs to somebody else and it’s just you

and the pitchforks,

and well, the pitchforks usually win this particular battle.

 

So the elite decided amongst themselves

whilst drinking fancy cocktails

and inventing new names for their secret societies

delighting themselves with secret handshakes

as well as hazing ceremonies involving candle wax

and a bit of cherry liquor,

that having a large settled middle class

with plenty to eat, plenty of time to fuck,

with access to national parks, affordable health care

and cheap juicy hamburgers,

was a splendid idea.

 

Unfortunately the elite eventually die

leaving behind children

who become the new elite, who themselves

have children

in turn becoming the new elite

having more elite children and so forth.

At some point the elite almost always forgets why

in the world would we share with all those damn

pesky middle class folks

all of our hard earned bounty!?

 

And they get rid of the middle class.

And the pitchforks come.

And win.

And eventually go away.

And there is a lot of bloodshed.

And the new elite, usually the few who lead

the middle class with the pitchforks

newly promoted to elites themselves

decide that a middle class is a damn fine idea,

 

and so the cycle starts over again

forevermore.

*********

Delve into more poetry and powerful prose in SN6: Mayday – available on Amazon now!

 

 

Read more by François Pointeau in – SN6: MAYDAY ON AMAZON

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