5362. NOT HAVING ROLLED FOR NOTHING

NOT HAVING ROLLED 

FOR NOTHING

The Jack Kerouac brakeman is walking the tracks

with his lantern  -  some platform out Colorado

way, or maybe something just near San Francisco.

Swinging an arm while whistling, and the lantern

dim-lit, held in the other hand  -  low towards the

ground, lighting proficiently a poorly-illumined

track. A path. But not the PATH, which is

here instead  -  in another place and in another

day. All this gets confusing. I am drinking

amber liquor from the past  -  one tumbler after

another, they go down easy while I get drunker.

Drunker than the edge of that plate with the

mussels. More drunk than Albuquerque ever 

was. Drunker than the Alleghenies. Shit

drunker than Daniel Boone or Richard

Crenna, or Sal Mineo or Marlon Brando.

-

And Marilyn Monroe, she never had it so good.

What was it with her anyway? How come everybody

lusted over that overgrown sex-pot of 1950's drool,

that plump body of tits and a belly? And, Jeez, that 

silly Andy Warhol face, all the time red-lipped and

on. Drunker than Channel 11, I'm getting, and, what?

I'm more than Wilshire Boulevard and the Marquessa

Islands ever was? Isn't that the place the Melville guy

went? Chasing that whale thing? I'm drunker than Chevy

Chase. Yeah, Moby Dick, that's the one. Wasn't she

in that too? Drunker than that zookeeper, very fond of rum.