Ballad Of 28th & Pearl

by Jonathan Huey

 

I.
Let their minds crumble
star-shocked & Greedy

The couple making out at the bar
now standing forty feet apart

in the alley behind the Outback Saloon
forlorn under mid-august lightning moon haze

Police officer asks:
have we heard screaming in the
vicinity of Taco Bell & Blockbuster—

Whiskey demons scorch the
Valmont low income eco-community:

Al Qaeda training camps behind the Safeway
among lopsided barbeque grills & hastily tagged

names on truck docks
& not quite maroon dumpsters:

Cheap imitation leather couch in
the middle of the creek—

Keystone light can spoons a fifth of
Maker’s Mark In the grass where children play
next to the Nature Conservancy Building

Walked home alone
inhaling the new cool

& thought that every tree
was a relative—

Great-grandmother Jimmy Witherspoon
of Midlothian Texas

May Fete Parade Beauty Queen 1923
paid my sisters a dollar for every chin whisker

pulled with tweezers while she grinned Buddha-eyed
wrapped in several afghans in her old age

bent & graceful with fresh leaves & deep roots
singing old spirituals while handcrafting biscuits:

 Sweet moan from the ground
up my bones through my eyes

Defensive driving quick escape rush
ecstatic among brother trees & sister flowers

felt naked on the pavement just myself
& the cat rolling on his back our eyes

fixed on the robins &
falling crab apples—

Unconcerned with hundreds of millions
spent on Olympic opening ceremony

Or Bob Costas in
Tiananmen
Massacre
Square

Was the Panchen Lama among the
thousands of synchronized drummers?

How many political prisoners concealed by
80,000 square feet of exquisite multicolored silk?

Random discursive thoughts:

Imagine Bernie Mac, Isaac Hayes,
& Pavarotti collaborating in Paradise—

my boss thought Sarah Palin was
 smoking hot until she opened her mouth.

 

II.

Last time her eyes flashed isotopes
polished Danskoes with beeswax

Sauntered barefoot utterly priestess
cold hardwood floor / bleached moonlight

Red Feather coyote midnight howl utterly sexual
deathless Padmasambhava juniper scent utterly radiant

No toilet paper in the outhouse
only shiver & starlight

Vigo Mortenson interview among
brown spider tenements utterly fine

alone in the mountains quiet & thoughtful.

 

III.

Rainbow shock poppycock sky blade
Zither pluck or Santuri:

Nakedly dance—

burnt feet swell unhurriedly
push with 2 ounces of pressure

Black maw—

burnt edges sing of singe!

Lovely Blackberry
Exquisite I-Phone
Undiminished Google Android!

Fall bees intoxicate crab apple cemetery:

Bring the young doe from the mountain!
Protect her from Folsom St. & 28th St.
& all the silly avenues
& synthetic Ipod pedestrians
& synthetic laptop coffee shop wireless junkies—

the meth labs of Red Feather Lakes
porno studios of Denver

inter-generational super active independent though
somewhat assisted senior recreational communities:

At least these next-gen squirrels
stop at the curb before Subaru splat

& little green bags stuffed with
Joy bespeckle Mt. Sanitas

& 29th St. mall sexier than her predecessor
though still a hillside buried ‘neath concrete facelifts

 

IV.

Spare change my libido for living wage?

Bowling tabernacles of Loveland!
Dumpsters of Pueblo!

Bail out my wasted years as a salesman?

Secretary Paulson!
Drunkards of Naxos & Santorini!

$700,000,000,000 for the poor wolf pups of Alaska
hunted by helicopter or Cessna?
Lunch meat for terrorists!
Yoga for weight loss!

How many soulless unmanned aerial death drones scour Pakistani frontier?

Update my Facebook mind
Beggars of Wholefoods
Strung out on Pearl St.

 

V.

Temporarily Temporal
Tendencies Toward Twilight

Thunder jugular pulses
irreducibly consistent:

Cobbler sits
‘neath cypress
Waziristan

Faces Mecca
Lives Life
Not Other

Not middle America’s Islamic Socialist Obama Obsession

Touch deeper tenderness:

Hold the weak ones accustomed
to claustrophobic nightmare

rouse them from
fragmentary solipsism

anticipate beginnings

 

VI.

A song for:

Dow under 8,000
13,000,000 unemployed

International Monetary Fund Meltdown
Iceland bankrupt and happy mind

Markets competitive
 like stags for a mate

musky thick perception like
shower steam mirror mind—

uncomfortable?  neurotic?

Kurdistani revolutionary woman
Ak-47 & two grenades shares first name with Fearless

natural night vision mind

 

VII.

Swerved unhurriedly
smoke soaked and sorrowful

satisfied in the sun blaze without taurine or guarana
mismatched socks mirror October leaves

Nearly unoccupied as He—

stretched ‘neath shade of walnut tree
on a bench by the bandshell 3198 North Broadway

arms crossed like deceased Egyptian royalty
occasional cigarette—

Lung stammer poised in the bellow of Broadway:

Screech of Skip
Crunch of gravel
Bicycle gear shift
Squirrels scamper

concrete saw buzz echoes through juniper sky
all these sounds make me feel mischievous

maybe after midnight I could meet up with Chuck Norris
and he could round up the surviving members of Delta Force

stalwart soldiers all / oath keepers & ass kickers

& we could meet
on Walnut Street

& scotch tape 10,000 leaves onto bare branches
but what would the King of Shambhala think?

He has no use for the anti-death fantasy
He will not be cryogenically frozen
He no longer argues with reality—

all the sweet warriors in the sunshine
a host of monarch butterflies playing at love:

alone & untouched Listerine drunk
shouting glorious obscenities—

was that yr face I saw today in the park?

The reverend dropped his pants and relieved
himself on the cinderblock wall next to the

local democratic office on Walnut St.
his eyes were ashamed / I hope mine were not

 

 

I remember yr face—

R2D2 Transient Shaolin Superhero
battled Issadore Million for breathing room
at the old Penny Lane coffee house—

You said “I know kung fu”
& Issadore said “That may be but around here
I have the reputation of being a sonofabitch”

& I wonder what you see
sleeping bags tossed aside

shootin the shit
passing around the water of life
in a brown paper sack—

Do you sip joy & sorrow together?
Do they crush yr chest and let the wind play?
Do you cackle at trees & speak mad poetry to extraterrestrial anything?

Or scorched bones & death:

Smoke rises from Mustard’s Last Stand
Bewildered / walking in circles with indigestion.

 

Jonathan Huey is one of the best last great young poets in Boulder, Colorado. He also does some Buddhist stuff.