Posted by Atticus on July 24, 2004, at 15:04:30
Cafe du Monde, August 9, 1994
Brain full of napalm
Lights incandescent flames
That flash like gas jets
Behind my blue eyes.Loping along Bourbon Street,
Sipping a pina colada
In a Slurpee cup.
Bopping in syncopated time
To the zydeco
Blasting from open barroom doors
As the rapid-fire Cajun-flavored patois
Of ruddy-faced hustlers,
Preaching on the sidewalks,
Seeks to save the souls
Of any sober pilgrims
By luring them inside
To the bar-stool pews.
But the warm shrimp Po' Boy
Sitting in my stomach
Has me feeling too mellow
To listen.Neon in the windows,
Tubes of glowing gas,
Cast multi-hued reflections
On the tattoo,
Freshly polished to a sheen
With cocoa butter,
Of an Irish Celtic knot
That adorns my inner right wrist.Alyssa on my left,
My wife of 18 months,
A lyrical moving swirl
Of psychedelic tie-dye
And ankle-length orange peasant skirt.
Shoulder-length blond hair
Flows behind her
As she takes a hit
Of a strawberry daiquiri
In an innocuous
Wax-paper cup
Topped with a plastic lid and straw.
Wearing as many
Gaudy plastic beaded necklaces
As 10 bucks will buy,
Which is a lot.Tokin' Tiny Tim
Trotting to my right
Like an agitated terrier
Trying to keep pace
With my loping stride.
His buzz cut
Bobbing up,
Bobbing down,
Like a marker buoy
In a current of humid flesh that
Exhales booze-scented sweat
Through every pore.I'm draped
In basic warm-weather Goth,
Black t-shirt,
Black jeans,
Black cowboy boots
Ringed at the ankles
With silver chains
That jingle like
A gunslinger's spurs
With every step.
My hair, as usual, a halo of spikes,
A dark yang
To Alyssa's bright yin.
I've got just enough hippie
And she's got just enough punk
To make the thing work.Acid-Addled Walter is MIA,
Took off with a vampire chick
To get fitted for custom-made fangs
Made by a local dentist
As a sideline.
Anne Rice and Lestat
Are the two biggest names
In town.
Walter and batgirl
Hooked up
In a second-story
Punk/goth shop,
Where I bought a new
Black t-shirt
With the classic anarchy symbol
From the late '70s.
It nestles in my backpack
Next to the first-edition Faulkner,
"New Orleans Sketches,"
That I slapped down a Franklin for
In the tiny bookstore
Tucked away in Pirate's Alley
That had been the author's apartment
When he hammered out his first novel.Tokin' Tiny Tim
Thought I was nuts
To spend that much
On a book.
I'd try to explain,
But he'll never understand.
Never seen a pothead
Who was such a bundle
Of nerves,
Drifting through life
In a cloud of cannabis smoke,
Babbling neurotically
Like Woody Allen.
Says I make him edgy,
Never knows what I'll say,
Never knows what I might do,
Accuses me of having
No impulse control,
And hell, I can't
Really argue with that.Cops on horseback
Move serenely among the crowd.
Every night they seal off Bourbon
From traffic
With huge antique iron stanchions
Covered with peeling paint,
And the nightcrawlers emerge,
Whores and poets,
Tourists and addicts,
To traipse and strut and dance
Across the macadam ballroom.The decapitated noggins
Of a million baby alligators,
Lacquered and preserved
With jaws agape,
Stare forlornly
From every souvenir shop display
That I see,
And this is too debauched
Even for me,
To sell the heads of infants
As trinkets
While bellowing,
"Laissez les bon temps rouler."Sun's coming up.
I imagine Acid-Addled Walter
Curled up in the arms
Of his vampire lover
Someplace dark
And lined
With crimson silk.
"Let's hit the Cafe du Monde,"
I say,
So we head west
Toward the Mississippi,
And eventually I feel
The first rays of the dawn
Prickling the skin
On the back of my neck.I stop at a drop-box
To buy a copy
Of the Times-Picayune
And take a sucker-punch
To the gut
When I read the headline
At the bottom of the page:
"Singer Kurt Cobain Found Dead"He'd slipped away from a rehab clinic
To a room above his garage,
Scribbled
"I'm sorry
I'm sorry
I'm sorry"
On a piece of paper,
Shot up some smack,
Followed by a chaser
Of shotgun shells
To his brain.Why is this hitting me so hard?
I wonder.
Yes, Nirvana is
My favorite band.
Yes, "Nevermind" is
My favorite album.
But just as a moment
Of insight
Seems within reach,
It slips away
As Tokin' Tiny Tim
Blurts,
"It had to happen
Sooner or later."I turn to face him
With feral rage
That I don't really understand,
Snarling,
"Shut up, shut up,
Just shut the hell up."Sitting sullenly at a table
Under the green and white striped awning,
Facing away from the cafe's
Cheery sunburst yellow stucco fascade.
I snatch up my plate of beignets,
Sending a plume of the white powdered sugar
Atop them
Wafting across the small round table,
And stalk across the street,
Clutching a cup of French Roast coffee
In my other hand.
"Why is he always so moody?"
I hear Tokin' Tiny Tim
Ask Alyssa.I climb the steps
Along the concrete floodwall
To the ancient Spanish cannon
At the top
And slump against the muzzle pointing out
At the chocolate milk waters
Of the Mississippi delta.
I bite into a sweet, sweet beignet,
Wash it down with coffee,
And begin
Humming "Heart-Shaped Box"
To the gulls.
-- Atticus
poster:Atticus
thread:370015
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/write/20040320/msgs/370015.html