SIX PREAMBLES FOR A DEAD FRIEND No-6
The swallows have returned, battle weary, wing blown over momentous seas,like notes in music playing in the azure morning sky,and the wasps crackle in the late May sunshine, where bullet frogs slither into open ponds,and the last of the decaying daffodils lie on the grass, dispondable,as if out of breath extinguished by the night, and the lips of the pine brook singsits weary tune, where we used to sit by the bridge of sighs, in melancholy mood,the reflected patterns on the surface of the mill stream sparkle, and swirl,we called back names to the railway drivers as they hung their soot black sleeves out of the engine cab,cat calling in the telegraph wires, blowing their whistles with the steady click clack in tune with the tracks,and the sleeping dog daisy dozed beside the grease slicked rails,and the hoof prints of the morning horses have left their weight upon the cold pine soil,charcoal arrow head shaped hooves, and we lay like the ditch water fox,culled caught and harangued, how we used to talk to the signal box man who burned bacon and sausages in the bowl of his shovel,he'd pull the signals, like pulling teeth, his billy can by the window, full of Irish whiskey,as the 9.15. locomotive rumbled by, the vibration separating the oil from the booze,and up along the pines the early dragonfly detectives search for their elusive prey, as the grasses mold and meld in the warm sunshine of the morning,and the first sweet new mown grass drifts around us, and the canopy of firs Shields us,here among our beloved pines, we parted close friends and I except death,although I'm here now burning my bridge's, over looking Christmas bridge, a pagan amongst the believers, a hologram, that the fat old sun just swallowed up,and the earthworms and the blind birds hover in amongst the honey evening church spires,the haunting growls of the bats who make love in the belfry, and the petticoat moving clouds shroud the hills in an aquiline mood,and the piano tuned pines tell our stories, and drinking white wine with our cowboy boots on, and out of fashion rodeo shirts,we would lean on the ranch styled rails like gangsters, fresh from the Cotton club,or sit down by the stage doors amongst the milk bottles and trash, talking with the acrobats and the chain smoking chorus girls,strung out like lyrics in the rain, we were both shanghaied by the summer resin in the pines, I had a lion tamers charm,and all those Sunday mornings away on the coast, where we would take photographs, with some honey on my arm, and you in your mind set, wrestling that badger in your mind,and ghosts came out of the radio, as we held back those faraway tears from our melancholy pasts,my only true love with her snake ring and Warsaw eyes, your malachite Mexican girl with her brown hair and hot burrito cheeks,sliding down to oblivion, and writing songs about Omaha, we used to sing Merle Haggards swinging doors, up by the rail crossing sign, it was always the same train different times,we would dream about the world and where we might want to go, log cabins amongst the smokey mountains,down in key west where the dolphins sink into the sunsets, where we could swim up to the bar in the big hotels and order our margaritas,up to our elbows in writers and musicians, I'm sat by the pool with my sax across my knees, your climbing on the double bass bending that a string,we used to think we were some kinda road movie, traveling on Firestone Tyre's crossing over the border to New Mexico, but in reality, all we did was to gaze through these crazy pines,in some English winter with frozen eyelashes, and snowflake brain, or kicking some downtown bar-rail seeing all our sunsets out in the beermats,and whats left,! but the finger stains on my Spanish guitar, and the swallows returning with their mud hut eyes, with tales of Africa and Tangier's,remember the night we kept a flamingo in the cellar and nursed him for the sun, lets tilt the sun, lets fish in the afternoon tides, lets walk in the morning town rain,above our tired English heads it falls, as the farms dress in heaps of hay, and all the lonely people, all the sad unblest kings that walk the earth, solitary drifters, starless and shoeless,like the sorry flower that rests her petals on an armful of breeze, out of the east the swallows fly by, and we sit under the slat tiles of the old barn, where rain splinters through the air cracks,and dust dollies settle on our shoulders, we look through owl feathers at the world, Amsterdam in June Vermont in august, and us down here in the boondocks of nothingness,waiting to board some ship which holds only reptiles, we dive down between the rails and pine trees,some freedom flute wind blowing in from the west, with our best jug hooked onto a hawthorn branch, we wished our feral lives away,the two headed snake ring I gave my girlfriend, fades like some sepia photograph, Tuesday have no avenues to walk down when summer comes cold colour on tap, we talked to the station porter,he looks likes a German indigo smoking a sausage pipe, his bottomless eyes Grey and faraway, the curlew lets loose her song, a voice like a bassoon skimming the brown hills, far above our heads,as the stream signature whistle blows out over this desolate place, the ivory rails that drive steam driven things to nowhere, the pristine lines, the red bricked tunnel mole pushes underground, out of sight of upset and sorrow,as the tramp and beatnik share their drink by the magazine posters, the turquoise eyed model pointing her accusing finger, and the old boys sat amongst the copper kettles brewing gossip in the wind,their blush coloured cheeks, more crimson than Christmastime, and the hourglass sinks with the sun, as the hobo darlings move across to the other side of town,and outside here, in the lonesome pines, I lock eyes with the butterflies, and bide my hours with the owls, I am the dog in the manger, and high in the stratosphere, the giant 747s fly headlong down the gulf stream, to Terra Del feugo and beyond,and here in my hometown the living lay down to sleep with the dead, and I never take a breath for granted, I am doomed forever to swim these pathless seas, like Beethoven sitting at keyboards with a pub band,here amongst the pines lies my own destiny, how I wish I was a whistle on the line, living forever tucked under the wings of spring, forever young, spread out under the chestnut tree of summer, or be it I die in winter,as my shadow casts over some shallow grave, I will drink from the font of Christmas future,only yesterday I met a man from Brazil who said he was a salamander, he had a wish in his pocket, and cocktail eyes,remember John when we were down in San Jose, in the depot yard, with that drunk junkyard dog, who walked like a mountain lion,and we would ride the rails up to west chester, and sit with our Winchesters and butlin badges, and pre-school smiles, we used to talk up in the pines,about Christ and Hollywood films, Gable blowing smoke out the window into Orson Wells face, on this universal morning the pines are radiant, mix me a gargle from the lame brook,and I bet your up their in heaven John, and as the afternoon blew into evening, and the moths fluttered away En glands light, I would play my guitar hungover,between the elm trees, the strings would hum down the valley with my sandpaper voice, some misforgotten verse, some hound dog memory, and the local hunchback would put money into my leather cup,and I'd write poems on the bowl of my guitar, about how blue eyes turn to red, how loving couples brains would meld and squeeze, how the hell hound was on my trail, lovers reluctant to admit that they don't belong to each other,so they just ramble on, hoping things are going to change, and its like moonlight in Vermont, up here just passing through the pines,the days long blonde plaits coming down like a curtain, we are no more actors, we are clowns, wasting our wishes on the fotheringgay air, and the lines hum from the electric trains,up above us in the canopy, diesel oil residue settles on the night-jars wings, it was a train that took me away from here, but it was desire that drove me home, and I hear the murder geese flying overhead sounding their squonk, like dirges,and the Buffalo that run wild in my blood stream, hoof it to the moon, and the melancholy fugitives eat whiskey grain on the run, and down here theres a tempo, a beat,a sanguine of violin, a soliloquy in a haunted house, and my breath steams up from the old church windows stained glass, with the blood of Christ coursing through my veins,we keep ourselves to ourselves here amongst the pines even the fungi speak in hushed tones, and we lean against the rails again, look up into the firs and make our wishes, let black be white,let death be life, lets give all the pain away, and give breath to the alive, and I wished I was in South Dakota again, film flamming up the greyhound lines to Cody, standing beneath the old west telegraph wires, taut in summer,hung low in winter, we dreamed of being gunslingers as we put our pennies on the line, with the far off whistle, and the dark brown of the engineers face, we stood by the silver tracks, with the Beatles in our heads,picking up our squashed full moon money, we put snails on the rails, and hid in the bushes, with a pint lung full of pine air, and oh to be in England when the swallows rush over the rooftops, and skim over the milk churns,and bob and weave around the thatched houses, then swoop down upon the world, weary ducks on the pond, and settle in the mud by the pine brook, and now its snowing, its snowing around the white marble fountain,in a nook in the hills pines, my pneumatic breath blows icicles into blush, and the red cheeks of the railroad man blows his tin whistle at the train gauges,and I'm raging at gravity, now in these middle years, Nebraska looks good to me now, and I look like the oil painting you painted of the bulrushes,lying by the Egyptian Nile, and they sway in the light Pharaoh breeze, or is it a trick of the light,and over by the sleeping rails the vagabonds sleep, and there for the grace of God go I, as I slip into the swallow of a hollow, in this Christ crafted time,and the picture of my Mother-lies in an envelope nearby, and Johns snow clad gravestone is wrapped in clover twine and hymn sheets, I'm beat up now, with the weather like this,dear John press your lips to the heavy laden winter sky, load my sunglasses molasses guns, make like we were running from the law, were we cats or mice,as we sat among the pines did we piss on life?, did we shoulder all our heartbreaks and revolutionary geeks, were we trampled on like some classical warrior,belched into an early grave by our contemporaries, spit upon by our critics,and when that bending moonlight hits our part of the earth, let your soul lift up, let your eyes adjust,when we were younger every month of every year, we sat amongst those whithered pines, in each one of the four seasons,the timbre of spring, the slumber of summer, the melancholy of autumn, and the quietness of winter,dear John it is now over, the stars will see you home.