Stepping Out II https://bdelectablemnts.runboard.com/t2634 Runboard| Stepping Out II en-us Thu, 28 Mar 2024 09:05:16 +0000 Thu, 28 Mar 2024 09:05:16 +0000 https://www.runboard.com/ rssfeeds_managingeditor@runboard.com (Runboard.com RSS feeds managing editor) rssfeeds_webmaster@runboard.com (Runboard.com RSS feeds webmaster) akBBS 60 Stepping Out IIhttps://bdelectablemnts.runboard.com/p17626,from=rss#post17626https://bdelectablemnts.runboard.com/p17626,from=rss#post17626Stepping Out II I’m walking streets again, the night time streets of a city, in the way I walked them before I knew young life could ever hatch out the mistakes, or that dead ends and detours have the knack for bringing you back to night time rounds first set on spin. And the years must be older if the contrast concludes the sense. So long as I could say no wrong turns taken, no first promises forsaken, no springtime presses turned sour, no sweet summers suffered to walk unwanted into cold autumn’s shower, so long as these fingers could worry the shiny dime story then I could sign my name “yours forever, truly young.” It’s these streets again, and walking under neon lights of a seaside city, walking in time to a rock n roll heart when tonight the heart goes hurting. And when I’m kind of wishing it would wrap itself instead inside the draperies of some school of conceit. Like maybe in poets’ company of other dark-in-shadow dreamers who’ve followed similar streams of asphalt or brick, who’ve gone the way looking for parallel, even outlawed roads to more natural destinations. History manuals have them by name, if no one else seems to. Or not out here, at least, where the knowing becomes too intimate, even smacking of authenticity, not to mention a certain amount of soulful duplicity. And there is no real need to ask after these light-in-shadow lovers, since they are here beside me on another narrowing street, egging me to join in their company in the yellow low light of another mother bar. The wandering Goliards, and terrible Villons, the moon thirsty Baudelaires, more modern Apollinaires. Those outrageously Christ-like livers of love and good times, with outraged livers pickled in wine, who’ve laughed at the masses from their crosses of pain, while crying in rivers over sweet cheats kept dangling before the same. And it’s done no good telling them, as we step deeper into the town, they’ve made a mistake in tracking me down. “I’m terribly sorry, gentlemen, but you’ve cornered the wrong clown. This generation, you see, has had its complement of Christ-types, of equal opportunity moth-flights, of Morrisons, Joplins, and Hendrixes, and of kings never just left alone to leave the stage with grace.” It’s done no good telling them these things as we keep our conversations out on the streets again, the night time streets where first we met not all that long ago. And they’ve never actually listened as I’ve tried to show them how stupid are propositions of either/or conditions. Or how tragedy by any name, be it Hegelian, Grecian, star stricken, even for the sake of richer Republicans, still like putting boys in a jungle to fight the fathers’ battles. It’s as if they know it all by heart, and they’d rather try to surprise some lovely, long tailed cuckoo from behind a blind. They just smile at me drunkenly, pull closer on the cloak of poetry and steer us inside another rock n roll bar. It admittedly hurts my case to be seen with them on streets again. And even when we’re leaving the deep dancing and deeper thinking they doggedly lead the way as we’re reeling for the door. And while walking along the bay front wall made to slake the towny fear of water, or when crossing the bridge that spans the cocaine hour before dawn, or even when we’ve turned back down this narrowest street like the cold and cutting sheets turned down at home, it becomes clear to see they’ve kept with me inside the years; and that what first had seemed a passing conceit is the earnest game, instead, still played for keeps. And I don’t really mind these streets, night time streets of another steamy city, where fast cars speed to desperate destinations, where street people sleep beneath newspaper habitations, where businessmen waddle like geese from pond to pond, where parks are haunted by lonely men-fauns hunting spectrals of other lonely men, and where budding young girls carefully lay on their charms to carelessly make themselves more moon-in-face than they are. It isn’t that I mind these streets, walking down these streets with neon shoulders bruised and bare, except for the indigo woman I’ve met in whose purple night garden a dreamer could till in dreams back under. Terresonnondisclosed_email@example.com (Terreson)Mon, 26 Oct 2020 01:24:32 +0000