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Open Poetry #41
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A Long Ramble About Days Gone By
| Open Poetry #41 |
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A Long Ramble About Days Gone By |
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icebox Member Elite
since 2003-05-03
Posts 4383in the shadows 
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With age I've learned what I should have shown all along the road, secrets survive in the keeping, truth does not go leaping gazelle like from one soul to another, it must be chased down by predator packs of wistful fantasies, and I see no point in hacking it like Ferlinghetti after the flame turned cold, in the end crying out for Pythian answers in mists abandoned by the Oracle two thousand years ago. When I was young I watched the full moon slide up over the mountains out by Red Rock as on a long ride West I drove out of sweet Las Vegas; the parking lots and pulchritude hadn't spread that far, back then the darkness really was the darkness and the moonlight turned the sky a deep indigo; I was just a tool, like many others I had met, but at a time of need I was good to go, carved out of ice, a simple trained device for putting other people's problems in a box. I had just earned a year's worth of easy living and left the dregs of youth in places that are casino parking lots today, I was on my way to fill another contract in a quiet town down on the California coast, then I'd have enough to fix my old panhead parked rusting tucked away and weeping oil, pay the rent while hiding in plain sight, let a college play host until the weather grew soft again. I knew I had to make the most of clear roads, and the car what a sweet ride, dual quads open exhaust built when gas was as cheap as life in a barren desert, no speed limits back then and out past Red Rock I swear I could have counted every star if I'd only had a thousand lives to do it even with the fired up moon blotting out one side of my own private sky. The sun came up behind me as we both slipped into Needles, gassed up on five bucks, choked down station food and on the road again; by the time I got to Claremont I was tired, things were strange in 1969. For those who weren't there, the idea of revolution in the air was not just an abstract, an idea taught in school by wannabe professors of social silliness looking ass-backwards through wish distorted windows, or celebrated by some fool on TV doing "an enlightened retrospective of the years of change;" the sons and daughters of the upperclass often wanted to play poor, they lived and dressed as if oppressed and with pure naivete opened doorways to an enemy who really did want to blow our world away. My job had been a simple task, slip in fast and take out two then glide on up to ‘Frisco and disappear among the crowd; each city was a phone number, each call a flatline voice, at that time in my life the idea of choice was out of joint, the point was to serve as best I knew because I was cold enough to do the work few others could bring themselves to do. Driving in the fast lane without a rearview mirror. always there was a plan but I never assumed out of hand that things would work the way I'd been told; I was expected to improvise, telling lies was just a way to be defending truth in a culture that had yet to realize there is no way to outlive youth when age becomes the battle ground; so the Angels' caves were full of weapons and the streets got filled with drugs and imported revolutionary thugs. How many still alive understand if fewer people had been stoned the country would have blown sky high and our second civil war would have torn us all apart. I think about that sometimes today when it seems we're right back at the start of organized bloodletting in the streets; I am not endorsing social drugs, but few who lived then would deny before Prozac Zoloft Xanax Navane and the rest the best of us had simply ceased to be among the willing working hard at sweating to be free, we had instead the luxury of believing in a fantasy of destiny; we all thought we could control our fates with theories of a world that liberates by intellect, decorated with respect by threads plucked from the greed of loving life enough to kill or die. We left instead a mess of half reformed socialistic plans built out of just get by bandages until the next election when we can try again to take away this silly notion that people can be safer when think they're free. Kent State may have been street theater but the toll was two for one, and Nixon opened China like a Sunday jelly roll, but of them all I did love Jimmy Carter's soul bleeding in his heart besides the little bit of lust he told us all about; I'm just sure he did believe turning the other cheek would rid the world of all his hates; I smile when I hear his name, or see his own smiling face, of course as a President he brought nothing but disgrace; though I always loved his thought of using goats to cut the lawn, I think he never learned talking to a murderer just gives him time for better aim, and dead for skill or foolishness is still dead all the same; turning the other cheek is a strategy I just cannot defend, to love thine enemy may work in the New Testament nice book that it is, too bad the hero dies in the end, and then there was the Gipper with a child's clarity who said we will be free when we stop acting like there's parity between good and evil, yet with a credit line he brought an empire to its knees. By then I was moving on having framed a door with planks of liberty ripped from coffins passed along the way, living free of the debris gathered into windswept piles tucked into shadows where for comfort I seem to stay. Did it matter through it all that I was aware beyond the mindless chant of "My country right or wrong but my country?" Perhaps, but it saps the strength of logic to believe; simply said, I rode the horse each morning waiting for the call to charge. ©2007 by icebox . |
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| © Copyright 2007 icebox - All Rights Reserved | |||
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Honeybunch Member Rara Avis
since 2001-12-29
Posts 7115South Africa |
icebox -  Helen |
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JamesMichael Member Empyrean
since 1999-11-16
Posts 33336Kapolei, Hawaii, USA |
Thanks for sharing...James |
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serenity blaze Member Empyrean
since 2000-02-02
Posts 27738 |
Should you ever write the book, it would certainly be optioned for a movie. (Um, I wouldn't mind if my name came up for screen adaptation either.  )I loved it all--but especially the Jimmy Carter verse. You are hands down the best storyteller here--I hope you know how much I love and admire your ability, your kindness and your wisdom. |
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Kit McCallum
Administrator
Member Laureate
since 2000-04-30
Posts 14774Ontario, Canada |
Wow ... this was great, Icebox. I enjoyed the way you brought me into the mindset, the time, the era ... really well done.  I enjoyed the flow in this as well. It was an effortless read, and yet filled with so much information and items to ponder. Very much enjoyed this. I also wondered if the origin of your Icebox pen name was referenced in the lines below? "I was good to go, carved out of ice, a simple trained device for putting other people's problems in a box." Enjoyed the read! Best wishes, /Kit |
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secondhanddreampoet Member Ascendant
since 2006-11-07
Posts 6394a 'Universalist' ! |
A wonderful (direct) ‘write’…filled with so much (of importance) to think about… and so many memories for those of us who lived those times…and similar experiences... [I am always saddened to think of the abysmal failure/abandonment of the 1960s social agenda...and also, how far this nation has strayed from the original dream of fully participatory, representative democracy (the 'last best hope for humankind') as envisioned in the 'Jeffersonian purity' of the founding fathers (including my ancestor, John Adams)... in contrast to this 'Runaway American Dream' it has degenerated into!] I am particularly fond of: “truth does not go leaping gazelle like from one soul to another, it must be chased down by predator packs of wistful fantasies”; “crying out for Pythian answers in mists abandoned by the Oracle two thousand years ago”; “I swear I could have counted every star if I'd only had a thousand lives to do it even with the fired up moon”; “we all thought we could control our fates with theories of a world that liberates by intellect”; “We left instead a mess of half reformed socialistic plans built out of just get by bandages until the next election when we can try again to take away this silly notion that people can be safer when think they're free(!)” VERY serious, long-sustained applause! [a poetic 'standing ovation'!!] ~ |
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iliana Member Patricius
since 2003-12-05
Posts 13434USA |
"I think about that sometimes today when it seems we're right back at the start of organized bloodletting in the streets; I am not endorsing social drugs, but few who lived then would deny before Prozac Zoloft Xanax Navane and the rest the best of us had simply ceased to be among the willing working hard at sweating to be free, we had instead the luxury of believing in a fantasy of destiny; we all thought we could control our fates with theories of a world that liberates by intellect, decorated with respect by threads plucked from the greed of loving life enough to kill or die." This one verse sums up so much of that time. Tremendously powerful, this is. *hugs*...jo |
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Marchmadness Member Rara Avis
since 2007-09-16
Posts 9271So. El Monte, California |
I remember all of this but as a mother trying to take care of children and make ends meet. Didn't have much time to revolt against anything but haven't forgotten a thing. Ida |
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Martie
Moderator
Member Empyrean
since 1999-09-21
Posts 28049California |
Icebox...not sure how I missed this, but I'm glad it came back so I could read it now. As always,  |
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TinaTrivett Senior Member
since 2006-07-15
Posts 569 |
Love it icebox. You are a true artist & story teller. |
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Robert Frazier Senior Member
since 2003-02-06
Posts 1014 |
absolute mesmerizing journey though "everyone knows this is nowhere" Robert |
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secondhanddreampoet Member Ascendant
since 2006-11-07
Posts 6394a 'Universalist' ! |
I was most happy to see this fine 'write' come to near the top of the "P.I.P.-land" queue again! (I hope even more folks read and comment on it) continuing applause! |
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