No one has to worry about getting old
around here. I promise
to see to that personally.

We’re going to move across the landscape
of this small room like we’re nineteen and willing to count down
from there.

We’re not even going to slow down
when the lights shriek in terror and the casual carnival
freezes in whatever mistakes they were making
before we arrived via that limousine that dropped us from the sky.

It’s not like we’re going to stay
until they try to throw us out with sharp teeth and baseball bats.

I used to get tossed on my ear every other night,
and I was awfully good at finding a way back in.

Sometimes I’d buy the youngest writer in there
a boilermaker and tell him that a good novel
can still save lives.

Other times I’d wrap the latest coat-check girl
in my arms and tell her that someday soon
she could have one hell of a career in the silent pictures.

I was pretty charming back then. Either that
or I just drank a lot more in polite company
than I do these days when I’m alone.
It’s impossible to guess except for the old hotel I visit
in my dreams that consists of a million locked doors,
just as many muffled conversations about love or war
and a long, deliberately claustrophobic hallway
with a non-stop slideshow at the end of the line.

There’s a backdrop sound of a hurricane
trying to live beyond the underground in everything
I see while finally fast asleep. Sometimes I hear that same noise
when I’m standing perfectly still and trying to remember
if you’re behind door number one or door number seventy-two.

A lot of my life consists of being in places
that demand an insight into time travel
in order to find a way back to the weird country road
where most of my troubles started.

That small room with huge characters
is a perfect example of that,
and I can’t wait to show you the difference.

You haven’t lived like a fool in this town
until you’ve tried it on my dime.

Just make sure your dress is ready to move.

04/03/2011

Posted on 04/03/2011
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