If you comment: it’s not exactly rocket science, you sound like you think you are a rocket scientist.
⊙
The silver couple arrives. She forgets my name but gives me a new one each day. Curly Sue. Dimples.
Today, I am Goldilocks.
She asks the bartender my name when she thinks I cannot hear. She suggests I read the poem Casey at the Bat. Hum, huh.
The village beach preservation busy body society has two tables held for them. One for the men and one for the women. Twelve seats total. Only three women come. They talk the politics of healthcare and about the addicts in their lives.
Our speakers play almost decent, easy listening blues. If you can imagine such a thing. Almost-Stevie Ray Vaughan comes on.
Nearly-Suite: Judy Blue Eyes plays.
We are slow enough that I actually noticemusic is playing.
And, time moves slowly now.
The reservation for six at noon became 4 at fifteen ’til
.All named Pat.
“You are pulling my leg, right?”
“No! It’s Pat’s Day. Okay, now I am kidding you about that. We are all named Pat.”
He and the other Pat (only two have arrived) laugh uproariously.
Lighting a cigar, he and his bulldog walk away and across the street to
my side of the road.
They precede me by about six feet as we walk.
I inhale deeply the spirals of smoke that follow him.
I feel less sheepish about the plumes of vapor I emit.
He stops to let me pass.
“Don’t want you breathing my fumes.”
“I was enjoying it.”
I was enjoying it, too.
“Showbiz Kids” comes through my cans.
Steely Dan’s Countdown to Ecstasy.
Five minutes later, I arrive at the cozy, little bistro located on Main Street. Two blocks from the water. I see the beach town’s Monday morning is already in full swing. Live and bumping with mostly silverhairs, at this hour.
The exception being a thirty-something couple that I wager is still out from last night.
They drink a lot of water.
(No one likes ice in their water here.)
I hum my hellos to the front of house crew.
I get mumbles back. It is early.
I announce my hellos to the back of house who are singing a song in Spanish that I have never heard. They wave enthusiastically. They have been here three hours longer than front of house.
Their coffee already kicked in.
⊙
11:05 a.m.
and, the sun finally asserts itself, breaking free from behind clouds.
This thrills and disappoints.
I am already sweating. The A/C unit has not worked since I started.
writing to you as A’ licentious Alice, a chalice, from AL by way of LA origin-ally, with houndstooth donned:
It is the sense of loving the moment. It is remembering the sensation of meta/physical love and then remembering the sensation of how it feels to lose it. That ache. That sense of how many times will they wreck me?. How many times will I play the Fool?
Again and again.
Why lose the Fool of yourself? If I killed the Fool inside to be hip, where did the real me go? With whom do you share your inner fool? Can guarding it be anything authentic?
In this mp3 and streaming world, a mix CD burned,
a cassette tapemade,
breaks my heart right open. Is that why we have one?
This is not sadness; it is a necessary devouring of self.
Here, where the desire to conduct currents raises meta/physical energy in the nerve endings concealed under my skin.
What a waste to not make use of it.
I would waste that energy on you alone.
Waste it in the face of
your silence.
I will howl until you howl back, to punish you.
Does that spook you,
you ghost of the man of May?
Giggle-snarl.
I espied your inconsistency immediately since taking my flight of departure.
Curious.
It was my mistake. I should not have allowed you to let me leave. I thought I was being kind, but I was only being polite. Stay. That’s what I really meant to say or do this time.
I abide still. I stoke fires. I test the limit.
I care for you. That is all. I can unconditionally hold you(,) dear.
My love is not tethered to needing love.
My devotion is my loyalty to my beloved. You endeared yourself to me.
I desire you. Now you must suffer the cost of your own, odd charms.
It is no matter of ‘should’ you, but rather, ‘could’ you
tell me true?
If you could, I hold you(,) dear.
If you could not, I hold you(,) dear.
<>
There is heavy magic in your air and I am magnetized.
Some integral things reduce to simple vibrations, to sounds, to sounds like bays, being transmitted through our air.
I wrote all these words first
in longhand to show you how inane I can be.
How frighteningly unafraid
you could be,
should you so choose, ewe.
Or, perhaps, your hands are tied.
Perhaps you have no choice but to be so.
I learn the record of your timeframes
still.
Deliciously diabolical it seems: both your pleasure and your desperation.
Does it make you forget which side of the road on which you ought to be driving?
Were you just checking out your mojo?
Taking me for a ride in your fast car?
There. Am I impressed?
Hum.
Good question.
Can you answer this: if I told you that your heart belongs to me now, would you hold your head up high in the air?
Could you even if you wanted?
Could you even say if you didn’t?
The difference between ‘can’ and ‘may.’
Simon says he went birdwatching but only saw his own feet.
Not many birds to be seen in that scene?
Just grounded, flightless birds, you adorable dodo.
<>
I saw a porcupine ripping out its own quills,
one by one by one,
by one at a time.
Onlookers horrified at the sight of so much blood.
The porcupine stabs them while they are stunned into stillness by the reverie-stupor of their surprise.
He heard him directly asked twice, separately, and all he would give up is:
I work here.
He returns nightly.
He emerges from the back of house with a
fresh bus rag. He flaps it,
like a matador,
before folding it into a small square.
He does not even give up
a smile.
He magically produces a broom and dust pan to
sweep the carpet.
They don’t make ’em like that anymore?
Hardest working man in show business.
<>
The smell of cologne breaks through, suddenly.
I breathe it in deep. Try to see the source.
That was a fun song: the singer says, tuning his guitar.
He and the fellow on keys banter between songs. Long enough to be ready for the next song. Not too long.
The bass and drums do not laugh along or smile.
The funky bassist.
There is a reason he is front and center.
He has no mic. He does not solo.
Nothing is the only part he overplayed.
He is perfectly on point. Tight.
Anchoring.
A self-indulgent guitar solo becomes necessary at his command.
The guitarist announces the set break.
We now pause for this brief station identification: I think.
Guitar and keys wander out the back door
to the smoker haven.
Bass bums around with the crowd.
The perfectly understated drummer (rarest of the rare) escapes my awareness.
I look up at the screen above me and am informed carpet is being liquidated.
I stop looking at the screen.
The bassist is the first to return to his position.
Standing in his spot. Waiting.
The drummer appears moments later. Seated at his station.
Tick, tick.
The bassist sits down on an amp and starts playing along with the song on the jukebox.
/gotta have that funk/
You got it: I think.
He plucks a quick harmonic, wrapping up, as the guitar and keys return to the stage.
Stands back up, he takes his place between the two.
Guitar and the fellow on keys banter. Long enough to be ready for the next song. A bit closer to too long this time.
Tuning strings, the singer says: all right. We are gonna play the same set for you all over again…you guys look like you’re having a good enough time that you won’t even notice.
Hell, half of ’em probably don’t realize that you are a cover band: I think.
Deep cuts selected.
Covers of covers.
An undercover, cover band.
<>
Clearing empties and wiping away the sticky of slightly, sloshed beer spills,
R. stops by my table.
He calls me by first and last name.
When did I tell you that information, sly, observant one?
I fell down the rabbit hole of Roger Penrose (along with Douglas Hofstadter) during my mid-twenties. I became quite intrigued by Gödel’s sentence G (Nagelhas a great book for arm chair thinkers like me).
WrittenCasey 