3662. HOLD THE DIODE : EVERYTHING IS SO ERRATIC

HOLD THE DIODE :

EVERYTHING IS SO ERRATIC

The street was littered with new surveyor

markings  -  horrid, plastic day-glo pink

ribbons on branches and fence, and spiked

and driven into the ground. The grand

surveyor markings, the things which keep

us found : the here of here we are.

-

(Hold the diode : everything is so erratic.

The eagle flies at dawn; the time

for all good men is born).

-

1911. The doors were barely set and

the tenements  -  the newer and the old  -

where still two-deep along each eastside

street. The more the poor were poor, the

more they lived in back. It seems, in this

world, each thing has its place.

-

Nothing's very saddled on and nothing's

very new. Then, much years later again,

Theolonius Monk was still alive when I

was last at home, drinking from my

fur-lined teacup. Surrealist intrusion

in the enchanter's domain.

-

I said 'play me, what can you play

me today?'  -  that hopscotch breviary,

that hep-cat toybox, that lady from Shanghai,

that heartfelt heartbreak overdone and brimming:

All like that it went, until the coffee was on

and the new brew was gone.

-

'Yo! Hard-drivin', scrapple-ridin', master of

blue. Misty blue, where are you?' Hold the

diode, everything here is so erratic. The eagle

flies at dawn. Oh, Susanna. Sewanee River.

Old Black Joe  -  the time for all good men

is born, and ready, and here, and now.