Odysseus and his boys
Still I'm in this funk. What a funk. Miserable funk.
I bought a copy of "On the Road" by Kerouac. I've never read anything by Kerouac, which is probably unexpected for an admiring writer in New Jersey with a leaning toward the drug-culture and works by writers on the lam.
So, I went to a poetry reading for this book at my school. By far the best event I've ever attended a held at my school. That I was sitting next to an unreasonably cute girl I might have an impractical crush on might have given it some lift over other events.
There was a lot of poetry that didn't interest me. I guess I'm ashamed to admit I'm the kind of person who doesn't "see" some poetry right off. Every night for four summer months one year, I read "La Bella Donna Della Mia Mente" by Oscar Wilde to a girl in Boston, and I don't think the poem moved me an inch. Not until at least the third month. Other than that I read Arthur Rimbaud unremittingly for about a month; it only moved me as much as it would anyone else, I figure.
This though. Damn.
The poet who delivered it - his name, I don’t remember - he spoke in a sort of sandpaper swagger. A raspy confidence that the unfairly pretty girl to my right said scared her.
That I have a Corolla and find myself on Route 80 at least an hour a day gives this poem added significance.
Roy Orbison's Last Three Notes
12 mph over the speed limit on Route 80, I realize
the way I know the exact size of my bones
is the way I know I am the only one
in America listening to Roy Orbison
singing “Blue Bayou” at this precise moment,
and I feel sorry for everyone else.
Do they realize they are missing
his third from last note?-Bluuuueee-
and how it becomes a giant mouth I’m driving into-
“Bay”-pronounced bi-becomes the finger
pointing back-biiiiiiii-and all the sealed up cars
greasing along this dirty, pot-holed clavicle of New Jersey
don’t know this “you”-constant as my exhaust smoke-
yooooouuuu- and the beats underneath, more insistent
than the landlord knocking on the door-horns, drums, guitar, bass-
my Toyota Corolla is now one serious vehicle,
and the band and I are all alone, filling it up-
Roy and me in our cool sunglasses up front
and his musicians barely fitting their instruments in the back,
driving into the blue-bom bom bom-pulling ahead
of the pollution faster than New Jersey can spit it out-
Bye-boom bom-his leggy background singers must be jammed
in the trunk because suddenly I hear them and suddenly
we are Odysseus and his boys bringing the Sirens with us,
and the cassette player is our black box
containing all essential details in case we don’t make it,
but I know we’re going to make it because
Roy, my cool copilot, turns to me and says,
like the President says to his top general
after a war has been won, or like Morgan Earp
on his deathbed said to Wyatt when vengeance
was up to him, or like Gretchen Honecker
said when I knew I was about to get my first kiss,
Roy turns to me and says, “You-”
Anyway, I don't expect I'll be in this funk for very long. And, yeah, I have something to say about the new name for the Nintendo Wii. Don't worry.
I bought a copy of "On the Road" by Kerouac. I've never read anything by Kerouac, which is probably unexpected for an admiring writer in New Jersey with a leaning toward the drug-culture and works by writers on the lam.
So, I went to a poetry reading for this book at my school. By far the best event I've ever attended a held at my school. That I was sitting next to an unreasonably cute girl I might have an impractical crush on might have given it some lift over other events.
There was a lot of poetry that didn't interest me. I guess I'm ashamed to admit I'm the kind of person who doesn't "see" some poetry right off. Every night for four summer months one year, I read "La Bella Donna Della Mia Mente" by Oscar Wilde to a girl in Boston, and I don't think the poem moved me an inch. Not until at least the third month. Other than that I read Arthur Rimbaud unremittingly for about a month; it only moved me as much as it would anyone else, I figure.
This though. Damn.
The poet who delivered it - his name, I don’t remember - he spoke in a sort of sandpaper swagger. A raspy confidence that the unfairly pretty girl to my right said scared her.
That I have a Corolla and find myself on Route 80 at least an hour a day gives this poem added significance.
Roy Orbison's Last Three Notes
12 mph over the speed limit on Route 80, I realize
the way I know the exact size of my bones
is the way I know I am the only one
in America listening to Roy Orbison
singing “Blue Bayou” at this precise moment,
and I feel sorry for everyone else.
Do they realize they are missing
his third from last note?-Bluuuueee-
and how it becomes a giant mouth I’m driving into-
“Bay”-pronounced bi-becomes the finger
pointing back-biiiiiiii-and all the sealed up cars
greasing along this dirty, pot-holed clavicle of New Jersey
don’t know this “you”-constant as my exhaust smoke-
yooooouuuu- and the beats underneath, more insistent
than the landlord knocking on the door-horns, drums, guitar, bass-
my Toyota Corolla is now one serious vehicle,
and the band and I are all alone, filling it up-
Roy and me in our cool sunglasses up front
and his musicians barely fitting their instruments in the back,
driving into the blue-bom bom bom-pulling ahead
of the pollution faster than New Jersey can spit it out-
Bye-boom bom-his leggy background singers must be jammed
in the trunk because suddenly I hear them and suddenly
we are Odysseus and his boys bringing the Sirens with us,
and the cassette player is our black box
containing all essential details in case we don’t make it,
but I know we’re going to make it because
Roy, my cool copilot, turns to me and says,
like the President says to his top general
after a war has been won, or like Morgan Earp
on his deathbed said to Wyatt when vengeance
was up to him, or like Gretchen Honecker
said when I knew I was about to get my first kiss,
Roy turns to me and says, “You-”
Anyway, I don't expect I'll be in this funk for very long. And, yeah, I have something to say about the new name for the Nintendo Wii. Don't worry.