red night (excerpt from "Nor'easter")

the red green and
blue lights played
and danced a
frantic jerk on the
fake fog
as we played songs
songs like emeline
songs about irish whiskey
and weed
songs by other people
who will never know we played them
as the tourists
whooped and hollered below
the on stage serenade

there was an
anesthesiologist from
richmond
horse breeders from
missouri
the drunken dough boys of
swan beach
and one raucous table full of
bears and beards from the
hills of pennsyltucky
apple-tinis and
red headed sluts

as the boys and i
stuffed a victory
and our guitars
back in the van
them
pondering rest and
reefers
mine
eyes bore in focus
mind thirty three miles
away as i
pulled the keys to the ford
from my beaten
black leather
zipper scraped hand asking
can i feel it now
can i just go home
argument between my
senses and conscience
as my body throws my
hand to turn the key

plug in the portable
music player
cheap trick
hello there
whalehead club bound

fifty minutes later i
pick from the thickets
a tandem kayak
fit for one
two gallons of gasoline
and the winston
repeater
camels and a lighter

the mind and body
of the thief
must be subject to torment
i care nothing of the soul
that is for another
judge
i choose to shower the former
in heavy drops of
fast lead and fire

you must bear in mind now
and with importance
that in that sand box
where i work
and friends do
and my family has
lived
they ride by us daily
and scowl
my guests aghast as
small minds in big trucks
worry by
they lay spike strips
on my path
no shit
two by twelve inch
salt treated
shot or filled
otherwise with
thick
new
hand driven framing
nails
they
dig holes in my road
throw molasses soaked
feed corn down
on my land to bait the wild hogs
so that they may come out
and shoot them by night
by day they conspire
watch my movements
learning my schedule
wishing they knew which
bait
might lure me
so
do not judge
as i turn up the volume
lose the perspective
join small picture
politic
and turn neighbor
into crime scene
transform
shining yellow swamp boat
to
the best cliff hanger
the north beach sun
has ever endeavored to
question

this red night
i burn the text i
would have written
and finish the chapter
begun when the
citizen became thief
mine became his
and watched became
aware

i take all the
responsibility
a shovel would take
for digging a ditch
but
you might blame the
morning haze over
carova
on me

fireworks are
still illegal but
i see them
every night
as fresh souls arrive
not yet stained
by the jaundice of
coastal plain
winter
i
watch as some kid
shoots his mortars
announces the arrival
of two wide eyes
as
the color and sparks
fade back
leaving the x ray
clouds against black
heavens
i toss the end of a camel
and start the real show
thinking of my daughter
and a movie i saw
in 1979

and watch

and wait