I’ve seen the feeblest minds of my generation get in
the best MFA programs in the U.S. of A. I read the
finest minds pseudonymously blogging about
difficult ways to be naked in the dark. The motel in
Barstow was called The Half-Sack Motor Palace
and it was hard to know if this was fate or just gassy
bloat, or maybe it was a secret hot-tub hideout for
defrocked priests and remedial orphans… either way
I had to piss, write a poem about pissing, and nap,
so I checked in. Ginsberg was there, sitting on the bed
in my room. He puffed his hash pipe silently. I pulled
us a couple of beers from my bag and used the john,
then we split the beers and the rest of his Lebanese
Blonde space cake while comparing hungers and highs,
and Lo and Behold! We agreed that everyone is either
strange or familiar. We agreed the ex-Prez tweets like
a mean girl. We agreed this thing called the real world
is a bizarre place where pissed-off creatures say things
aimed at your face. Sunlight spilling in the window
made the smoky room iridescent. I remembered I’d
forgotten to write my poem about pissing, and heard
Buk calling me a lazy old excuse for a poet through
the floorboard. “Ginsberg,” I whispered through the
sunlit haze, “my poems got kicked off the joyride,
they’re just a rest stop headache with an occasional
glory hole— I lie in the dark naked and black out
and none of my angels come, not a one.” He looked
thoughtful for a few beats, then aimed words right at
my face. “Sounds to me like you’re fucked,” he said,
but I’ve got Kerouac’s carcass in my car trunk… I’ll
drag that in, leave him with you, so you can take him
on the road, see if that helps.” Ginsberg ambled out the
door. Like a sap I sat and waited until the sun went
down. My poetry chops were jowls. I had to piss beer.
Curtis Blazemore has been on the planet far too long, publishing various works in between having bad luck and making people rethink their faith in humanity. No matter. He sees sentences in the exhaled smoke and scribbles furiously. He hopes someday to be able to afford a Greyhound bus ticket to Graceland.
