II

I chased Neal Cassady all across the prairie
From one endless sea to the next
And back again
And somehow I got left here.

He was never the one for me, though.
There was never any real connection,
When the road ended he was gone.
I don’t know what Jack saw in him.

No, that’s a lie
Cassady had a fantastic madness that
Made one wish for things that one rarely finds

And I’ve stopped looking for those things
For fear of disappointment.

I

Not Wide, but Deep and Underneath
and always, always looking up,

Ishmael has taken to the sea
and Whitman's Barbaric Yawp
has become Allen's Howl.

And where do I hide but
beneath my covers,
newspapers and magazines,
and books, but all the right ones you know.

I seek that silence where my own thoughts can seep back in.

I hear people talking all the time.
I nod and gesture
and take down notes.
When the phone rings I listen to myself
say things that others have told me.

I make sounds that are less
and less recognizable.

People, all of these people
sweep in and out of my periphery.
I have a blog, a cell phone
a tv, and three email accounts.
I am very easy to contact, but impossible to reach.

I hear ringing in my sleep and the
steady tapping of keys in the waking
stages of my dreams.

And if Williams is right, and "there
are no ideas but in things" than I
have ideas enough to drown in.

Far beneath the surface of where I lie
Things have become Ideas.
Doc Williams, what am I to do
but laugh until I break through?

Valentine

Here is my nephew
Here is his love and here is his drawing
Here is his beauty