notes from the road

I'm a critter. I'm a man. I'm a critterman. (sung to the melody of that one song "i'm a bitch, im a lover," you know, that really lame song from the 90's.)

oil drum. leaky faucet.
broken thumb. fire rocket.

tattle tail. open road.
mostly dry, the quiet toad.

hope for freedom
in the future,
i can see them
drawing nearer.

broken stones with countless clones
litter every road.
smiling the devil's grin.

the clouds roll away like gymnasts in timeless motion.
chasing the eternal blue.

Southern Texas:
At times, when zoning into ethereal mind-space,
it becomes a blur.
But sadly I still gaze with the eyes of
a dying doe.

texas loomed darkly.

-highway 35 N from San Antonio to Austin. Saw Martin off sad & quick at the San Antonion Intl. Airport. More room, but no Martin.
Such is life.

Today New Orleans stole my soul.

Memphis Tennessee:
We got mugged.
at gunpoint.

Somewhere on the road leading to the Windsor ruins in Mississippi, these seeming sculpted ivy-covered trees lurked like chained beasts in a dungeon. (polaroid description)

Dillapidated pillars in the grounds of a massive southern mansion from the past. Plantation slave souls. (polaroid description)

Brown water and river workers eating from big blue lunchboxes at the mighty Mississippi's royal bank. We drank beers. (polaroid description)

i fell in love in st. louis.

The soul of St. Louis, a heavily graffitid sloping cement wall beneath an overpass cradling the rusty railroad tracks. (polaroid description)

St. Louis Arch: Too far to see, for little old me. (polaroid description)

Memphis Tennessee. Spirit of the Blues. Classic rhinestone boots. But it's in this southern country haven that we were robbed at gunpoint by a dude in a black skimask. Beneath an overpass. We lay on our stomachs in the layers of dry dirt and vomit and sweat. He had us securely hidden behind a waste-high concrete wall. He stole our cash. He didn't shoot us. I was thinking he might. But he didn't. I'm glad.

Big Sexy Fountain, in a park near the Art Institute of Chicago, where we saw original paintings by Monet, Van Gogh, Picasso, and many more. (polaroid description)

Most Powerful Van! Van, GO!

Farm outside Milwaukee where two pretty girls gave us whiskey, breakfast, and a naked lake swim. Wiscansin hospitality. (polaroid description)

Some random guy (me) at the Badlands, perched precariously in the sun. (polaroid description)

exploring the badlands...

Black Hills Memorial Cemetary: Long shadows cast like fallen pine trees on the good green earth by sad and stubby headstones. (polaroid description)

the pines & pinback.
vast south dakotan
flatness.
don't cry, setting sun.
Belle Fourche.

No brain room to write.
Too much to see.

6:30 am sunrise in Belle Fourche South Dakota. (phantom horse eyes) (polaroid description)

wanna write a poem?
yes!

water whistle.
star thistle.
One morning I found
a dead bird and
I brought it back
to life. It flew
out of sight and
never came back. I
cried for weeks.
heavy drops of gloom
with tiny frayed tails
gleaming orange like his
sad, half-dead
eye.
And I flew home,
too.
The train in the air went,
"choo-choo!"
And fall fell
and spring went,
and this was the
warmest winter I've
ever spent.
(me and stan collaboratively(is that a word?) wrote this poem in Montana.)

Madison Buffalo Jump State Park, Montana. Camped here, woke up to intermitten rain sent by the stormcloud gods of the northwest. (polaroid description)

a carousel for Missoula. (polaroid description)

goodbye, missoula.