The time of which we speak was ruled only by one master,
Motion.
I bowed obediently and rode with the momentum granted me,
It was the string,
A single lone string on white thigh that caught my eye on a skirt too high
it seemed to profess that if I only followed it to its end it would show me things that I couldn’t
comprehend, allow me into the temple of her disco
Content to do just that,
For the moment.
how sad that I had to start dodging staccato blasts,
she was Cagney with a Tommy Gun volley of words that I skipped first left,
then right,
till I couldn’t dodge any further.
If they were cruel words, if they stung, I could have respected their venom, but pedestrian was unforgiveable
I had already long ago abandoned allowing the fashion of the age to tie me up, bind me in its convention
She never got that, join she said, she gave all she had to offer, but I politely refused,
Her last words were bitter but I forgave them immediately as they fluttered towards me because I couldn’t expect her to understand what I understood,
That we weren’t confined by the spectrum,
Time was no longer defined in minutes, months, or decades,
In the end I had to roll away, I thought she could blend, but I was mistaken and I fell out
Flickering lights, I said drop me here and the driver obliged,
Miles used to play here,
So I hear I answered,
As I stared, watching the chalky palms of long slim negro fingers snapping to the beat I understood,
Some hep running across the floor with bright red drops trailing
I saw him but didn’t even need to break my gaze,
Bad fix
My fix had went better and the soft slow enveloped me,
As pleasurable as the slow always is, it couldn’t explain why
I was inside the beat, not on top, or in front, I was inside rising and falling as it dictated
I felt a stare
The other pale face in the crowd spotted me
She smiled
This wasn’t a girl on the make,
Nothing further
She could have had one of me
at anytime
in a hundred places more familiar to both of us,
It was simply a smile
Of gratitude that there was another witness to the beat
And being inside of it
Miles can’t come back, can he I asked my table mate?
No he answered,
The Jews I asked ?
Yep he answered
He had been hungry too long, they fed him but he forgot that when you been hungry as long as him,
It don’t take much to fill you up.
No place for the satiated here,
he was left to play to those who hadn’t known that you could get inside the beat,
they were misguided enough to think they already were.
Must have been painful to Miles because he knew better
The Jews aren’t all bad, I said to him,
He sat, thought a moment and agreed, there’s Lenny, he tearing it up from the inside out
But before long, they going to roll him up into a ball of sad and roll him down, like they always do, Miles
too, not long for either.
The man spoke the truth
Where are you going ?
I’m not sure I answered.
Looking down from his elevated cab the Mayflower Cowboy said I’m going to Albuquerque, you need a ride ?
Hell no, sun shines there and it’s warm I said
You sleep outside he asked?
Only if I have to I answered
He nodded and pointed to the station.
I was born under grey skies, no place in the sun for me
The waitress at the diner said, this isn’t Kearney, this is a small town .
I enjoyed the soup and asked what was the noise and if I could find any here,
I was still inside the beat,
Everything vibrant and the slow still doing its thing,
She said we have a matinee,
A talkie I asked?
Of course, we’re small, but not that small
On we went,
Skip skip skip
She leaned into me and said she loved Carole
I agreed, so sassy, never take any jive, even from Barrymore,
that for sure, this one has moxie, she ain’t no Brangelina,
and what’s with all the colored babies she said ?
I remembered where I was at,
Agreed,
And shrugged my shoulders
She went left; I pivoted right upon exiting the movie house,
Tap tap tap
for longer than I can recall
Into the alley
Swarthy faces greeted me with curiosity,
Sono si perso?
No I’m not lost I replied to the elderly woman
Hustled away by the arm, a dark girl led me up a circular stairway
Where’s your husband I asked?
He’s a merchant marine she answered.
When’s he due back?
Maybe never she answered.
We crashed, I remember feeling the waves of the Mediterranean swallow me up, only to release and grant me pardon back to shore,
I rose,
I need a Chesterfield I said,
I stepped outside, looked down
No ice
I put both feet together
Hop, hop, and hop
to the bottom,
Looked both directions and smoothed away
as always
As I was saying
Hybrid Mode
