PostPoems Be Artistic. Be Creative. Be Inspired!

Still reaching for the gem inside as I walk on the Center City streets of Philadelphia.  Coming out of a Border’s Bookstore with a stack of new literature to conquer.  As if I needed more books.  I still have plenty of books I’ve never read.  Just read the introductions and forewords and wing it from there,  I exit poorer for cash but richer for the potential learning.  I’m accosted by a homeless man.  He has a deep gravelly voice like a blues singer.  I’m thinking where’s the acoustic guitar and bottleneck when you really need them.  He's claiming that he doesn’t drink or  take drugs.  I can’t make a judgment on the drugs but I can smell whiskey on his breath.  I still give him 87 cents because he has such a great bluesy voice.  That’s no loss to me.  I laugh about the whole thing.  I have better things to move on to.  I don’t know if this was a good deed since he’ll probably collect enough to buy more booze.  Maybe it’ll go into the annals as a bad deed since I may have been feeding an addiction.  I know we’re not supposed to support habits but the deed is done.  How much booze can he buy for 87 cents anyway?

It's done and over with.  Now I head on to the Unitarian Church to hear Ken Kesey read and do a book signing.  I can hear a literary legend like Kesey and get my copy of One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest signed by the author.  That’s the read deal!  It’s not anything important but it’s always cool to get a book signed by the author.  Besides I need to get more involved with the literary community.  I’m sure this will be an enjoyable afternoon.  Hop on the bus with the  captain of the Merry Pranksters.  Yeah, have a wild time.  Wonder how many heads will be there.  Look for the tie dyes.  Hip Hip get on the bus and reflect on Neil and Jerry’s health.  We’ll meditate on the words of a reluctant guru,  Feeling high and ready for the performance.

No longer concerned about the 87 cents.  It’s not something that can really go down as a good deed but I’ll live with it.  87 fucking cents!  It’s a real joke.  I spent 56 dollars on books. Books of all things.  What am I?  A literary man or something?  But I’ll get to meet Kesey and I’m here in the City of Brotherly Love with a content feeling.  The ensuing rush of anxiety as the irony crosses my mind.  Going to a church to listen to Ken Kesey.  It almost makes me wish I had a blotter of acid to drop.  That might add greater relevance to the event about to unfold.  Irony and hippie glory with the field trip underway.  Reach the old church and enter in with deep reflection.  First time I’ve been in a church in a long time.  It’s almost an eerie feeling.  The radiators are old.  The floors are squeaky.  I step lightly but hear the creak.  It makes me think of Edgar Allan Poe for some reason.  Another of the great nuts of literature.

Well, Poe had a Philly connection anyhow.  Maybe he went to this church.  Maybe the feeling I get is being stirred by the ghosts of unitarians past.  I take a seat and wait for the reading.  I’m unsure of anything anymore.  I clutch my books.  I don’t know why I’m so nervous about letting them out of my hands.  This is a church.  The stained glass windows portray religious motifs.  It’s almost Catholic and that might stimulate nostalgia of an unpleasant nature.  Better put them thoughts out of my head.  Don’t wanna remember Catechism or Sunday mass.  It’s been too long and I’ve been beyond it for too many years.  I accept the spirituality of this church as ghosts are felt in the air.   Tolerance being a key; a key to the whole thing.  I’m here now and I might as well enjoy it.  Acceptance and faith are alive.  Let the crazed prophet slash shaman speak his piece.  I’m all ears as the introduction is made.

Let him come that has something worthy to say.  I can hear the song of the dove.  I get comfortable and prepare.  All I want is my autograph and a chance to marvel at the Chief Prankster.  Yeah, it's been fun to go on this ride.  That's for damn sure.  The Kool Acid Tests was a trip and Cowboy Neal is still at the wheel of heaven’s bus.  And the era of my birth re-instills its fire in my heart.  I exit Philly for the time and enter the fields of my own imagination.  The reality is screened from my thought process.  Excited anticipation is felt.  Enlightenment and education and even entertainment.  Ain’t that exactly what it’s all supposed to be about.  Transcendence and transformation.  It remains the key to the future.  In what way will I be better when I leave here?  In what way will the world be better when I leave it?  Both rather interesting and important questions.  I’ll keep working on it all night long.