The Poetry, Essays and Personal Journals of Larry L. Dill
Satori in a Motel 6
Carl agreed to stay in a Motel 6
In Fort Stockton
on our last night in from the Gila.
He felt broke, I guess.
Reality seeping back in
After a week in the wilderness.
“There’s no fucking shampoo in here!”
he shouted from the steamy shower.
“Welcome to Motel 6,” I laughed back at him.
I’m in Texarkana tonight
On the eve of Carl’s birthday, 6 years later,
And marveling at what rich pleasures
$28.79 can still buy in America:
A warm room in winter, HBO, a good bed,
And a clean, well lighted shower stall.
No shampoo, though.
After 6 years
I’m still laughing about that.
Oblivion Then and Now
We sat in the living room
late the other Friday night,
both of us a little drunk, I guess,
and cried about life's disappointments.
The next day we slept til noon
and I took the dog for a walk in the park
and two young lovers
chased each other out across the ball field
and fell into each other's arms in the dry grass.
And I thought how wonderful
it would be
to be back there
in the carefree days
when there was no oblivion
to stay clear of.
Life itself was the oblivion back then
when we were young.
Singularity
I tried to find a handkerchief
to dry my eyes
trying to wash away
all the people
who have told me lies.
It never works out
the way you wanted it to be.
Too many loss leaders
to really set yourself free.
I went down around the mountain
like I've done before
I still breath deep
I don't expect anymore.
Rhyming out your life
is not as foolish as it seems.
It's just a literary version of dreams.
Music, like sex, should not be
so much a part of your life
that you forget who you are,
what your own rhythms are for,
what your own body is like alone, alone.
It's great to get drunk
and dance the night away.
But the morning of that
will bring an emptiness
that can only be answered
by the you that lives apart
from everything else in the universe.
The singularity of your self.
Enjoy that, too.
Sometimes I just sit in my room
and stare at the bookshelves.
Books of every imaginable kind:
science, religion, poetry,
philosophy, history, fiction,
etc., etc., etc.,
and I imagine that the book I need,
the one book that will explain
everything to me,
is right over there on the shelf
just waiting for me to pick it up
and read it. Darwin? Montaigne? Dorothy Parker?
Auden? Bukowski? Freud? Shakespeare?
the Bible?
I keep looking at the spines
of all those books
and never even get out of my chair
to go over and pick one out.
I just keep reading the titles over and over.
Some of the books I've already read
but I've forgotten what they said.
Others have been sitting there unopened
for years, decades.
And then eventually I pick up a pen and a notebook
and start writing down something
like this and eventually I come to a stopping place
and another poem feels finished
and I look back at the books of others on the shelves
and think about nothing in particular at all.
It seems an odd way of being in the world,
even to me.
Conversation inside my head
Something triggered my interest in you.
I stalked around the edges of your space
before I came forward.
You and I used to live in different countries
and just being in the same place
at the same time
created heat and light and irresistability.
Always been a place in my heart for you,
for art. Always a place to start.
Let's get down to business, now, though.
We could start with new beginnings,
begging questions and pitching woo.
But then again, just who are you?
We could take Auden's lessons in saying No
and Eliot's ways of turning summer into snow.
But really it's just down to us now, isn't it?
and no use faking anything else.
You're the music, I'm the song
and those two theories don't always get along.
You go your way and I'll go mine.
You do rhythm, I'll do rime.
Ships at night that pass away.
Still, I'll try to see you nearly every day.
I'm drawing buildings in my head.
Some are yellow, some are red.
The open windows don't have any glass.
A pleasant way for thoughts to pass.
I'm a little bit stronger every day.
But I can still feel myself fading away.
One more last will and testament
I'm not ready for back room deals
or hospital rooms
or life on wheels.
I know I can fight death,
go down every day
and have a new test.
But I'm working here
on a life of my own.
When do you ever get to feel
like you're finally grown.
There's no dignified way die,
Don't get me wrong.
I just want to go out
on the wings of a song.
I don't see how
that can be entirely wrong.
"I went down and down around the cliffs.
The air was dry, the dust in drifts."
Sometimes it's just time to go home.
Suffer, yes, but try not to moan.
Life is hard and life is sweet,
and she had candy in her feet.
You get the day and you get the night.
And life is good and life is right.
And life is wrong and life is cruel
And in the end you're just a fool.
But we can sing these songs
'til we go down
and laugh at death and hold its hand
and walk barefooted on the sand.
Put me in the Gila
where Geronimo swam.
I'll be in the Pacific
And then New Amsterdam.
But don't take these myths to far.
Live now.
And live where you are.
Ode to Bukowski
I felt like I was Bukowski
In a small town. I felt like I
Was just like Bukowski
Only living in a small town in North Carolina
Instead of Los Angeles.
I found a copy of some of his short stories
In the Christian Ministries Thrift Store
Where I shop a lot.
It was the first time in 30 or 40 years
That I had come across
A used copy of Bukowski in a bookstore
Or anywhere. People don’t throw away
Their Bukowskis. Boy that’s the way I
Wanted to be.
It was two in the afternoon
And feeling like Bukowski
I wanted to go to a bar.
We have bars here.
Some are even low-brow enough
Bukowski could like them.
But I didn’t go.
So there’s a difference right there.
The cracks between us are already showing.
I went to Burger King instead and got a
Veggie burger and right there was something else
That Bukowski would probably never do.
Not not go to Burger King,
But not eat a veggie burger.
But who knows?
I placed my order, sat down, opened up
Bukowski’s book and started reading the first story,
“The most beautiful woman in town.”
And I got my Bukowski mind back
Right off the bat.
The little girl who took my order
seemed, for my money, to be the most
beautiful woman in my little town. Today.
Bukowski, in his story anyway,
met his most beautiful woman
In one of those low brow bars in west LA.
And she came right on to him.
His woman had black hair
and looked like an American Indian.
Mine was blonde and could have
Been on the cover of 16 magazine
Or in the pages of Playboy.
She didn’t come on to me at all.
But she brought my veggie burger and fries
Right out to my table and smiled at me
And said, “Veggie burger and fries!”
Like it was really something special
And I said, “Thank you,” with all the longing
And loneliness an old man could muster.
And she smiled at me again as she turned away.
“You’re welcome! Have a nice day!"
She’d brought an order out to me that way before
Even though nobody else in there ever did that.
They usually just call out your order and you have to
Get up and go get it yourself. But this
Little girl brought it right to my table with the
Kind of savoir-faire of a seasoned waitress
In a real restaurant or one of those uptown bars
Where there could be real money in the tips if
You played your cards right. All she’d have to do
Is smile and act like she cared just like she was doing now.
Maybe she really liked me.
Maybe she was just practicing for that real job.
Her name was printed on the receipt.
I stared at it.
It was one of those young names
Like one of those pop stars who gets into trouble
With drugs or bad men.
I looked at her sleek little body
As she walked away from me
And I hoped that she never had any trouble
With drugs or bad men.
It was a hope as desperate as prayer.
I like to think Bukowski would have felt the same way
If he’d been there.
Readings:
Four poems by Charles Bukowski on Democracy,
Architecture, Writing and Telling the Truth
And a poem by Philip Larkin on Religion
February 2008 Edition of the New Hope Journal
Complete Site Index
larrydill@newhopejournal.com
www.newhopejournal.com
copyright 2008 by Larry L. Dill