MICHAEL ROTHENBERG

NARCISSUS JOURNAL - part I

 

 

July 20

 

Weathermen expect heavy thunderstorms for east Colorado 

 

 

July 21

 

Bug corpse graffiti on windshield

Wind steers the steering wheel

 

            The Churches of Quinter Welcome You!

 

                                   Abilene, Topeka 

           

                                               "Kansas City here I come!"

 

            Bob Dole country

            Birthplace of Amelia Earhart

            Home state of two astronauts

 

                        Drowning in a wheat field in Kansas

 

 

July 22

 

            Fried eggs, country biscuits, iced tea

 

                                   Ozark Land

 

            Home cured ham

                                              

Corn Fields

St. Louis Arch

 

            William Burroughs lives somewhere around here

 

                                   Illinois State Line

 

                                               Redwing blackbird

                                               E. on I-64

                                              

                                               Hawk soars

                                               57 south to 24 south

 

            Nashville

 

July 23

 

Barber sitting in two chair shop

Not a hair brush in the place

Combs, razors

 

                        Radio plays country

 

He nicks my ear

Treats flow with styptic

Wants to shave my back

                                    No thanks

 

                        No one knows who’s in control

                       

In Nashville they lament they turned Elvis away

Elvis came back just the same

 

 

July 24

 

Why do I run, Narcissus?

                                                           On a highway

                                                     

                                                     in Kansas

                                   reflections in a glass of iced tea

                                                    in shoreline pools of Lake Tahoe

                                                    in Kentucky prisons

 

            Candlelight Restaurant, home cooking

 

                                          in catsup. . .

 

            I ask for well-done potatoes, they give them to me raw

            I'm willing to accept these Tennessee-style potatoes

 

Nashville Motel and Truck-Stop Complex off Trinity Lane

Gas up

Stuff down baked ham, biscuits

Here I come Alabama, surprise me!

 

                                   Magnolia blossoms

 

            Montgomery, capital of Alabama

           

                        Okra, Spanish moss, oak trees

 

            Drive carefully down country roads

           

Drunks

           

Bird hunting

            Deer grazing

            Wild turkey

           

Crepe myrtle

            Southern cedar

           

Mockingbirds

           

Dead cars rust in fields

           

Jump around visit a couple of folks

                       

No earthly idea

           

Ponds

            Nice sunset

            You see the Milky Way

 

 

July 25

 

6 am Chuck on all night drunk drags me from sleep

We stop on the roadside listen to every kind of bug dawn bird noise

           

Apologize for the traffic,” he says,

parked on red dirt road, lips around whiskey bottle

 

Not car or soul around

           

“Apologize for the traffic,” he says,

again

 

Screwdriver in the throat of tape deck

Shotgun shells and rubber worms between my feet

Bombed in a trashed out black Camaro sunrise

 

We visit an old man putting gas in his tractor

Walk with him to the porch

He sits down in a rusty old chair, complains he can't spit without teeth

Tobacco dribbles over his stubbled chin

He pours himself a whiskey with a Coca-Cola chaser

Says, "Enjoy women now, you've got plenty of time for drinking whiskey"

Chuck goes inside the house and comes back

with a straight razor, wet towel and a cab if Barbisol

Chuck shaves him

 

 

July 27

 

I do questions not answers, that's my way out of this

I'm going to turn this around, do answers not questions

 

                                   Georgia, Welcome

 

            83 miles to Atlanta

            Highway Dept. paints a white line in the road

 

Look at the people I pass

 

                        Graffiti advertising blow jobs

                                   on Days Inn truck-stop bathroom wall

                                   beside prayer asking God

                                   to send his son back to save this wicked world

 

                                   Welcome to South Carolina 

                                   Welcome to North Carolina 

 

I smell rain

Cool down

 

            Fast food signs trigger deep-fried nausea

 

Deep breath of rain

Dark clouds

Driving into a storm

                                  

Lightning flashes beyond road curve

 

                                   Welcome to Virginia

  

 

 

July 28

 

                        Is there a pot of gold in the middle of the road?

 

            "Don't get mesmerized by the road

            you might start thinking you are the road

and you're not"

 

Mirrors are where they should be

The same sunset in 200 motel rooms

TV bolted down to the dressing table

Sanitary wrapped plastic cup

2 X 1/8th inch soap wafers

 

Idling trucks like Nashville trucks, all night idling

 

                                   Welcome to Maryland

 

                        KEEP THE FREE STATE FREE FROM LITTER

 

            Baltimore

            Tunnel bumper to bumper

            Carbon monoxide fumes

            Claustrophobia

            $1 toll

 

            VIRGIN—TEACH YOUR KIDS IT’S NOT A DIRTY WORD

                                   Virgin in bloody red letters

 

Free State

 

                                   Welcome to Pennsylvania

                                      America Starts Here

 

*

 

                                   Welcome to New Jersey

 

Bumper to bumper

Stereo cranked up

Nervous thrum of engine, traffic

Diesel smoke, heat

 

Bumper to bumper to peaceful old neighborhood on Ave. B

In Port Washington a silver-haired lady mows the lawn

Does Dawn live here?

 

“When she's here,” the lady says and continues about the yard

 

 

July 29

 

            Massapequa

Suburban circa 1940's house

Blue hibiscus

Red geranium

Europe from window of bus

Replica of Eiffel Tower

London scenes on black velvet

Bavarian mugs

Model of Concorde

Commemorative dishes of Coliseum

Hand-painted scenes of winter in Vermont on a crosscut-saw

Ship in a bottle

Tourist map of Bermuda 1609 in wood frame

 

            Narcissus in white shorts, white shirt

            Red hair

            Cheeks aglow from riding about childhood haunts

in a rented convertible

 

*

 

Narcissus putting on make-up

 

Do I have sneakers to run?

11 a.m., I'm not ready yet

 

Sip second cup of coffee from a Florida palm tree coffee mug

Take another cup of coffee outside, sit beneath an umbrella

                                                           look down in a plastic pool. . .

                                              

                                                                          Narcissus

 

*

 

We sit on a concrete bridge

The reflection of two faces turned in opposite directions     

 

 

July 31

 

We’re romantics

But will we live out of storybooks and myths?

I came to see myself in a duck pond

She got here on her own

Clutching the chain link fence in the yard

Climbing desperately for freedom

They caught her and made her put on a skirt