Ten Commandments

Five thousand miles.
The voo-doo angels
dissipate into thin air
Bob Marley, Neil Young and Dylan
start the day.

Went to Savannah
for the crabmelt
beneath her belt.

Spanish moss
falls in the afternoon
onto cobbled back streets.

South Carolina to witness
the Atlantic's slow motion.

Return to Florida
where Jerry
works on me
about my
lack of creativity.

I confess
by breaking
the ten commandments
unable of
reciting Hail Mary's.

Saw a Baptist church
on Devilwood Street
Hallelujah.

Time to Exit New Orleans

It was time to leave
a haze followed us
across the bridge.
Somewhere I'll return
as all is inscribed
tattooed in mind
I can never compare
past nor future.

New Orleans

The Empress Hotel

I'm at least a week late posting this due to technical difficulty.

Crossed the lazy lady
where she runs wide and brown
Checked into the
Empress Hotel
into a room so small
they can't all read at the same time
so he sits in the corner
drinking his way into
New Orleans

Angels setting up shop
on the street
with broken wings
and old bicycles.

With worn boots
and holes in his socks
only a sip of beer
in his glass
his feet ache with age
and 200 plus pounds

His knees ache
and it's about to rain on his parade.

The French Quarter
never sleeps
the party never dies
Larry Flint's girls
on swings in the windows
of temptation and lust.

She calls to him
through rotten teeth
as she reaches for the dance pole
she gives up
to pool on the stage.

He awakes red eyed and red faced
on the floor
of their 12x12 hotel room
Hungover
in shit to his knees.
his only recollections
Bourbon street, The Hustler Club
and a girl on their balcony with
a hula hoop

Born empty
and stolen identity
and stumbling hard
he eats alligator and nearly pukes
His teeth float
all the way to Ursuline street
back to the Empress
where the girl in the foot tall heels
walks away
where he sleeps
on a deflated mattress
on the floor

Red eyed beneath a voodoo doll.

Chops

Kisatchie Bayou

68 degrees at 2:29pm
down the Cane River
past the Yucca Plantation
where
Saxon, Steinbeck and Faulkner wrote
Where
Clementine Hunter painted
her collection of daily occurances
on a plantation
through the eyes of a black woman of slavery
To where the Kisatchie Bayou
ripples across logs and stone,
where small rapids arise
as a rarety in Louisiana.
The south, Cajun country lies
but 50 miles south.

9:56 in the bayou.
2nd night
The hard booze is gone
14 beers left
4 for Redz
and the rest I'll drink by sundown

3rd day in the bayou
Rain falls on Lucinda's rooftop
We stay in our barracks till 12:40pm
as the rain eases
we venture out as the last camper leaves.

I can still catch a flame
as the last piece of wood
was that of a large stretch of green oak
that I managed to split throughout the day with my little hatchet.
I foraged the bayou for more firewood
as our supply has nearly diminished.
Rain falls soft over
the sounds of cannon fire and
automatic rapid fire machine gun.
We initially believed the cannon fire
was thunder
until the late afternoon
or as we found out differently

Was getting prepared to make dinner
with 8 beers left in the cold water
when a red short box step-side P.U.
enters the camp.
He pulls in and abandons his P.U.
to enter the bayou.
We tend to the fire
and put dinner off
while we sit back
and enjoy
the success
of an actual flame.

When the stranger returns
to his P.U.
we secretly watch him
as he is clearly not camping.

He returns to his truck
turns and leaves
the parking lot
and pulls into the dirt road
then hesitates
and turns his Chevy off.

I've been chopping wood
so I have
my trusted hatchet at hand.
The young man
in his mid-twenties
dark haired
comes running
back to our van.

At this point
the hairs go up
on the back of my neck
and I aggress toward him
axe at bay.

Says his name is Matt
he's got a flat
wants to know
if we have a tire pump.
Sure I reply
and retrieve the pump from the van.

His truck
is parked
just beyond
some bushes.

I feel
I have to witness
this flat tire
first hand
to reassure
my curiosity and fear.

Sure enough
dead flat
and I am happy
to notice there is no passenger.

Says he has no spare
so we plug in the air pump
the slow procedure begins
filling his tire.
We locate the hole
which is really a rip
and contemplate how to repair it.

Do you have any duck tape?
Sure
so I return to the van
where Athena has Japhy
and herself
along with the axe
locked in the van.

I reassure her
that it is a legit flat tire
I inform her
that I have my knife on my belt
and that she shouldn't worry.

I find a nylon patch,
a small piece of rubber inner tube
and the roll of duck tape
in which
I return to Matt's truck with.

We managed to fabricate
a considerably secured patch
and he offers to purchase
my small air pump
I sell it to him for 20 dollars
although he wants to
offer 30 for it.
I won't take it though
so he
smiles at me
with a bunch of rotten teeth
and says
bet you'd like to have a good time
once in a while
Say what?
I ask him
and he replies
like them left-hand cigarettes?
And I take him up on his offer.

Then he
goes into stories
about what one should look out for
here in the bayou.
Says the army's blowin' up everything
tanks just through the trees
training for Afghanistan
says that's the loud explosions you've been hearin'.
Says there's lot of them hogs out there
some's them
mix with them Russian boars
ken tell by the colour of thems hair,
and gators get bad here for swimming.
We have to chase them off our docks
'fore going fishing
yep them and a lot of boars.
My friend he shot 17
in 2 days flat.
So what if I see one
will he come at be
or run away?
Don't rightly know
best be fixin'
find a good tree.
To climb?, I ask
Probably jest run 'round it.
And he starts scurrying in a circle
with his hands out
like he's holding the trunk of a tree
red dirt scuffs off his running shoes
as his excitement
and animation employs me.

What would make the hog go away
I ask
Well I don't go nowheres
'thout my gun.

The tire fills with air
and off he goes
with a half-filled tire
and my heart in my hand.

Texas

Dead coyotes and skunks litter the edge of East bound Interstate 20.
Lucinda's 351 Cleveland, howls as she blows around like a set sail
she holds tight rubber on asphalt.
The winds blowing frigid
have plowed semi tractor-trailers into the soggy snow wet ditches,
where sheriffs and their deputies dodge oncoming traffic
like cockroaches running from a collapsing mine shaft.

Hooked up with my nephew and his family for dinner at a Tex-Mex diner.
We all pile into his Texas sized Ford as we laugh through the night.