On Saturday, April 8, 2023 at 10:25:17 PM UTC-4, W-Dockery wrote:
> General-Zod wrote:
>
> > Will Dockery wrote:
> >>
> >> Desolation Summer
>
> >> Last Spring
> >> I waited downstairs
> >> on the
> >> empty street below.
>
> >> After waiting a while
> >> I tossed a penny
> >> up to her window
> >> but still she didn't show.
>
> >> A thought came to me then
> >> it told me to walk away.
>
> >> I didn't need to
> >> live through
> >> that year again once through 1975 was plenty.
>
> >> So I sit here in my hovel
> >> and I wear
> >> the required mask.
>
> >> I know that
> >> we shall live again
> >> this too shall pass.
>
> >> Starting on this poem
> >> I pick for a topic.
>
> >> A year
> >> almost as odd
> >> as this one.
> >> Filled with humor
> >> tension and fear.
>
> >> It taxed my patience
> >> wondering what
> >> would come next.
>
> >> One day after another
> >> none better
> >> and never the best.
>
> >> It was 1975
> >> all that adolescent angst.
>
> >> As I read "Howl"
> >> and "Planet News"
> >> in my new abode
> >> a tent in the back yard.
>
> >> Spring came and went
> >> dark and brooding
> >> with a jester facade.
>
> >> We were getting our kicks
> >> way out in the sticks.
>
> >> I was popping little white pills
> >> and focused
> >> on the white lines
> >> of River Road.
>
> >> Taxi driving
> >> a few freaks
> >> out to the rocks
> >> of Mulberry Creek.
>
> >> Jump cut to Summer
> >> for me it was
> >> Highway 61 Revisited
> >> and Metal Machine Music
> >> and "a lot of soul," he said.
>
> >> Making my way through
> >> Jack Kerouac
> >> what few titles
> >> I could find that year.
>
> >> Summer vacation was on
> >> I was now
> >> in the practice room
> >> of a band named Blue Heat.
>
> >> I was writing lyrics
> >> where the light was
> >> by the window.
>
> >> And there on that
> >> Desolate weekend
> >> in a shack outside La Grange
> >> we recorded
> >> a few more songs.
>
> >> Where was Heather
> >> she who
> >> we fought over so?
>
> >> She'd evaded us all
> >> and was long gone.
>
> >> We traded a few letters
> >> me in La Grange
> >> she in Dothan.
>
> >> Swore we'd never forget
> >> that lasted until mid-Summer.
>
> >> I came back to the city
> >> and was swept up
> >> in a rapid fire
> >> series of situations.
>
> >> When there seemed
> >> no other choice
> >> but to follow
> >> that political machine.
>
> >> I was not surprised
> >> we'd meet again among the pines.
>
> >> I sat at the piano
> >> and pecked out the tune
> >> about an old man
> >> who lived one yard over.
>
> >> The Island Girl named Shirley
> >> she was new in town
> >> her father now stationed
> >> at Fort Benning.
>
> >> We made eye contact
> >> and both knew
> >> at first sight
> >> we wanted to experiment.
>
> >> She was fast
> >> and used a New York twang
> >> we clicked fast.
>
> >> My father had given me
> >> an electric blue
> >> 1969 Plymouth Satellite
> >> she jumped in with me
> >> for a ride.
>
> >> I kicked the radio up loud
> >> kicked in third gear
> >> and listened
> >> as she sang along
> >> with the tunes.
>
> >> In many ways
> >> there never was another
> >> dark night of the soul.
>
> >> Quite like 1975
> >> turned out to me
> >> for both Shirley and me.
>
> >> It taxed
> >> my spirit and soul
> >> the negative events
> >> of that year.
>
> >> Events that kept unfolding
> >> ending so much
> >> I had held dear.
>
> >> Sickness and violence
> >> in that strange new age.
>
> >> I was buzzing along
> >> Buena Vista Road
> >> just past the Spiderweb
> >> and cut in line too close.
>
> >> Racism was real
> >> I could see it
> >> from my rear view
> >> I could see the rage.
>
> >> Rusty Volt shaking his fist
> >> an ass whipping for me
> >> from a football jock
> >> I was suddenly on his list.
>
> >> Hung a right onto
> >> Lindsay Creek Bypass.
>
> >> Time for some Steve McQueen
> >> night moves.
>
> >> Rope a dope driving
> >> down the highway.
>
> >> Shirley was laughing
> >> but it was no joke.
>
> >> My slick moves
> >> in traffic
> >> even I had to laugh
> >> at those.
>
> >> I was young and brash
> >> and I spotted his car at times.
>
> >> But I knew
> >> the backstreets
> >> better than him.
>
> >> It taxed my imagination
> >> to see such a negative scene.
>
> >> It happened so fast
> >> without foreshadowing.
>
> >> We all made our way
> >> through that dim
> >> yet blazing year.
>
> >> The best we could
> >> any way that we could.
>
> >> Living like an animal
> >> perhaps
> >> like Mother Nature planned
> >> even giving up my name.
>
> >> My father was angry
> >> to the point that
> >> he was stalking me.
>
> >> I had broken the code
> >> and he'd broken
> >> my confidence in him.
>
> >> I had stopped
> >> by the house
> >> Shirley was with me.
>
> >> What was I thinking
> >> that everything was rhetorical?
>
> >> My father was next door
> >> sitting with Robert
> >> on the front porch.
>
> >> I glanced as I passed by
> >> saw his cold blue stare.
>
> >> Then came the weeks
> >> of intense
> >> bitter disappointment
> >> with everything and everyone
> >> I had trusted.
>
> >> Both sides were
> >> against us
> >> and Shirley folded
> >> and her father put her
> >> into another school.
>
> >> I became withdrawn
> >> strumming
> >> "House of the Rising Sun"
> >> for hours without even singing.
>
> >> Rusty Volt caught me
> >> in the parking lot
> >> weeks later
> >> one day after school
>
> >> After the bottom fell out
> >> and I
> >> had conceded defeat.
>
> >> But much to my surprise Rusty had changed.
> >> Rather than fighting
> >> he asked
> >> if I had a joint to smoke.
>
> >> The war was over
> >> both personal
> >> and in the 'Nam
> >> just in time
> >> in both cases.
>
> >> Murder is a crime
> >> The Clash set that straight
> >> forty years ago...
> >> "Know your rights... all three of them."
>
> >> But all that
> >> was still to come
> >> in grim and greasy November.
>
> >> Traffic on Cusetta Road
> >> was backed up
> >> like some funeral procession.
>
> >> I slowly drove
> >> as the rain fell
> >> so all alone
> >> again.
>
> >> Madness and decay
> >> as reality slips away.
>
> >> If I had proof
> >> it was a hoax
> >> then I might have
> >> joined him on the line.
>
> >> But I learned
> >> a long time ago
> >> alliances
> >> can be fleeting.
>
> >> Those who stand
> >> for abstract ideas
> >> may sometimes fall
> >> for anything.
>
> >> -Will Dockery (July 19 2020)
>
> >> ----
> >> From the Shadowville Mythos poetry blog:
> >> https://shadowville-mythos.blogspot.com/2021/04/desolation-summer.html
>
>
> > Another one of best...!
> Thanks again for reading and commenting.

Hi there.... you are most welcome....!!