The October fog muddled around
with no place to go
a touch of winter in an autumn of lost souls
I felt bones ache, felt the stubble of gray.
I came upon a sailor who drifted just above a misty lake
his milky eye pinned me
and profound as this may seem
he rose up like Christ or Chronkite
his words like bitter almonds
his hands like weavers of a dream,
and he said to me, “there’s still fire in those loins.
With a bit of prozac and viagra
you’ll still be writing poems.”
I dismissed him as I do all such illusions
or hypnosis of mass confusion
whereupon his eye, a reddish hue did form
and sent a chill no fire could warm
throughout my body, to my inner soul
a godless demon, some unemployed Buffy thrall
I had become
frozen to this single piece of knowledge
but when I tried to utter what now burned within my brain
as if melted butter, it simply slipped away again.
Then like some terrible poetry
he spread his cliched wings of horror
sucked in every fresh metaphor and gasped
“Get thee to. . .”
I knew the rest for I had passed this Danish test
yet nunneries were few these days
and fewer still male infested
so I waited
his pronouncement a rock upon a precipice
edged on by my own sins I had to know
“Where?” I requested
And clearly he was flustered
a slow, deep rattle was all he mustered
“Des Moines, Gary, the theatre?” I questioned
“Albuquerque,” he finally stuttered.
Clearly this was a ruse on his part
He must have meant hades, hell, or maybe Tucson
“Albuquerque,” he spoke again with greater spark.
“Albuquerque,” I quietly mused
for surely this demon had become confused
“It is a town of dried chili peppers
hot air balloons and Long Horn heifers.”
“Albuquerque,” he almost chuckled
and gave me that Chronkite twinkle
making my arthritic knee nearly buckle.
But as it was in early fall
when gray wizards and hairy hobbits
take prisoners of us all
I knew there was chicanery involved
for midday bleary, hospitality weary
his Albuquerque about my neck was hung.
“Seek this town, for all is not lost,”
his whispers like crushed leaves
“Find fellow poets, tempest tossed.”
Then in a whirl of angry adjectives he was gone.
Albuquerque, my mind swirled with possibilities
and yet I struggled with the rhyme
this all but quirky word a conundrum of a kind
gender challenged, was it a he or she
that burst from indeterminate womb.
Albuquerque, and now the word
a sedative had become
I found myself slipping into its fog
heavily encumbered by this somnolent bog
and then. . . and then. . .
I awoke to the touch of cotton sheets
amber light and air conditioned feet.
Immediately, I froze for from the hotel radio
a 60’s song, some long forgotten ditty
bid me, nay, commanded me to hum
because “I’m going to Kansas City
Kansas City here I come.”
Pity the poor troubadour who must sing a rhyme
for every conference attended.