How High the Moon

I heard it, coming from behind the Abernathy Building. I heard tonight what Dean heard, sitting in that club, listening to Slim Gaillard croon/chant “How High the Moon”. The highway is for gamblers and Dean was the “Yes” saying gambler prophet of the madness, the groove I grew through. But then, when Slim went on about potato salad, I knew what Dean heard, that source of the “Yes, Yes, Yes”.

Forget the dead you left, the living is in the breath as much as in the words. The holy covering is the howling at the moon, the crooning at the shapely temptress at the Casbah. I saw the moon come down tonight, crashing through the western storm like a rose slashing through the skeleton of Omar Khayam, like a flash from the prophet blowing the pneuma of God through the impending darkness of a city gone bad; a soul destined for Hell but somehow blown by the breath back for redemption.

Now is the time of redeeming, trading in that old piece of tattered paper that has no value, that coupon I kept for so long, the one with no date on it. Bring in that piece of worthless shit and suddenly find that it has huge count and a worth beyond measure. Somehow, the cherished scrap means more when you trade it in, when you give it back. It’s not the same. Things have changed.
Yeah, old Slim Gaillard raving into the microphone brought Dean into a new year, a new age beyond value. I heard the rave continue, the redemption of the word, the original Holy Goof breathed on the prophet, long before the train tracks took him away. It was the Slim of ’48 and the Adonis of Denver and the word was still fresh. The breath of the spirit was strong, as strong as it is now.

The Transfiguration of Blind Joe Death

Seems the chickens are finally coming home to roost. The long-dark night of the soul is finally at it's darkest and the cold soul-searing breath of death seems almost imminent.

"This is the story of America. Everybody's doing what they think they're supposed to do. So what if a bunch of men talk in loud voices and drink the night? " OTR, Part 1, Chapter 10, page 68.

Supposed to do? What are we supposed to do? I am alive in exile, alone in the crowd of the late afternoon laundromat. My clothes are in the final spin, the final spin.

Walking alone is sometimes what I've perferred, but not any more. As comfortable as I am with myself, I yearn for the presence of the other, the one I've forsaken. She's the one I've loved, and yet have forsaken. Thinking backwards, I craved freedom. I searched for the moment of release and the chance to be liberated from this soul-less situation I've made for myself.

But now here I am on the brink of release, about to be set free after my 22 year sentence, and what do I want?

I want to make peace. I want to revel in the past but dance hysterically into the future with the woman I love with all my might. What has changed? Not a lot, but everything at the same time. I want to live and eventually die in the arms of that woman I really do love.

My best intentions are what have gotten me here, those notions of doing what I think I'm supposed to do. Hell, my best intentions are the ones that continually get me in trouble. Frankly, I'm tired of being in charge. I've done and seen all those things (well, most of them) that we want our children to never even consider. I've been obnoxious. I've been unconscious. I've been so weird it would have killed a norrmal man. I've been all kinds of things that are hard to spell.

Right now, baby, I'm done. The old hymn isn't "I surrender 10%". No, sweetie, I surrender all.


My friend, the Presbyterian monk/pig, wanders with his rucksack into the fiction and fables of a life loved and remembered, and here I sit waiting for the dryer to scream at me to take my bloody clothes out and fold them. A quiet life is good but a sad life ain't nothing but sad.