Market Food

Yesterday
Awake, fumbling with toothpaste and age Jack spits the night down the drain and splashes and lashes cold reality onto his face wrinkled and real. Midday breakfast at the market, constant hum of voice and cooking food, fans blowing the smell of fried eggs and ham and laughter and your order's up, it's $11 for three meals and drinks. A short dog beneath the table which hosts a tub filled with onions pickled and hot and a small plate of salt that everyone dips their fingers into.
Today
Weakened from the market food, Jack shitting and puking the night long and now hides in the shade.

Jan. 26

Buying mangoes through open bus windows, all aboard for the frontier, headed for Nicaragua, blue sky day as traffic ahead slows us. Bicycles on the edge of the hardtop riding without fear. Double clutch gear grabbing only to down shift and load one more old man. Always something outside burning adding to the interior aroma.
The frontier es muy dificil, with long line-ups and papers white and yellow for exit and entry and exit taxes and entry taxes and a dollar for every transaction and line-ups that go nowhere and the wrong colored piece of paper and get back in line to pay another tip and finally cross into Nicaragua, into a taxi passing smoking volcanoes, a ride that lasts 40 min. for $20US into the surf town of San Juan del Sur, where we dance into the night in a bright yellow bar filled with travelers and locals alike drinking cheap rum. It's 4-1, compared to the price in Costa Rica.

Jan. 25

Santa Cruz, Costa Rica, 12:30 pm. Sweating on a bus to Liberia, that stops constantly taking 1 and a half hours to venture 77kms from the beach town of Samara. Through the window, dry country and passing Coca Cola delivery trucks, tin rooftops and grave yards, cattle starving on dehydrated grass along side the bumpy road. The wind howls through open windows.

Dia Especial

she looked out at me
from behind the gentle flowers
her fingers long
caressing her slender profile
curious eyes pondering
only a moment

Jack be Nimble

Jack clean shaved and away from the city mixes alas one more Rum prior to pass out.His mouth saturated by evening smoke and bad dream, he reaches for his stylo and paper to document the sounds of air conditioning and bugs, the cactus and ice in his plastic cup, the smell of resent in a country so rich a million dollars won't touch base. Jim told him it would cost,he blind, went into the wind. Old Fraser back home laughing drunk on Speckled Hen, further ahead than he knows and Bishop with his boundaries and camera, snapping stills and living his dream, Jd strumming his guitar in Nashville all the while Jack mixed up thinking so far ahead that he meets himself somewhere in between.

Montezuma At Night

Red and white tablecloths, our waitress in a white mini-skirt over a black G-string serving Boho bare feet surfers and tattooed dread head surf girls wearing short cut denim shorts. Monkeys drunk on fruit and stolen bread and sugar packets dance in the tree tops. Tica's and white dudes, Tico's and white chicks all drinking beer that is never cold enough.

Montezuma Monkeys

A couple of hangovers into it now.
Last night sober
feels good today.
Monkeys and waves
body surfed the afternoon.
Two more days here
then on the move.

Costa Rica

Fancy sandaled feet
one way streets
and tight jeans.
Pedestrians don't have the right away
Becoming familiar
with Pilsen and Imperial beer

So hot i had to shed
my skivies
many a short skirt
and plenty o hippies.
Bud and coke on
every corner
in Montezuma.
Thieves beside the police station
drunk on love
in the sanded campground
gunna spend a half dozen days here.

Ice

headed south with a hangover
Jack's teeth ache
and the whores are plastic
wine glass empty
as the roach burns fingers.
The ice road slide
a bike without screws.
Next years ride
an old dead sled
and a jug of rum.

My Boy

Camp fire grilled cheese
and
a garbage bag sled
Bring in the new year
@-15 degrees