We are a long way from Texas

You left last night and this morning 

Star anise and its dark black like coffee

In the morning that’s the only taste

Until my evening after

The hallways were chlorine and the long endless carpets that invoke Johnny

and Red Rum

I heard the isn’t side isn’t that nice this time of year

I found this out for myself when I stumbled upon a neon shanty town

they knew the night, I thought

They came to the street and I was afraid

and drove further to unfinished highways

I felt alone and surreal and was reminded of the recurring dream

with the Easter Island statues, falling apart and building themselves 

back together again

The cigarette tastes like cherries

I stand outside with two old strangers who give me a light with an old strange Zippo

That’s a funny cigarette

Yes it is

I bought a pack for strange reasons

I even walked there, alone in Ohio

where the fall was ending and winter started to step in

I discovered this with my cigarette and jacket

As I smoked with two old strangers who gave me a light with their old strange Zippo

There was a beginning to this cigarette

Somewhere back in Texas with an accent

The strangest of them all

Where all the words were mixed with half truths but I didn’t care

Back in the country with those lying bluebonnets, nestled in the hills

like pools of water, like something they weren’t

From that small town down yonder north

but you stayed in the town by the river where you wrecked your car into things

that didn’t move 

And we took it souther still, to the other river with the jazz by the side

Drinking liquor because we asked what the house bourbon was

And in Ohio, the old couple asks me more

as they smoke they tell me to quit smoking

So I put out my cigarette and throw away the pack

And back upstairs I lay in bed waiting for the world to stop spinning

And tasting nothing but cherries

Remember Johnny Smith

that haunting voice played through a projector

he would sing just one song

and let me play for fun with a grin

Johnny smith wore black glasses and a black shirt

and I watched him play with a filter

there was no flare

and there was often no soul but eclecticism

he was a brother to the other bald man

who jumped and danced with that harmonica

i once saw him do cocaine in the bathroom

when he saw me he only grinned

johnny smith sat alone or sometimes with

dirty dave who once invited me to smoke pot with him in the parking lot

his mouth was a plank fence of knotty pine

he too would sing one song and offer kind words

johnny smith would always shake with two hands

I watched him play jazz through

warm tubes

and this was the sweetest sound of them all

There is a butterfly in the glass

right there in the coaster

where the wine glass would sit

I’d stick my nose in the glass when you let me

and take a sniff that would give me goosebumps

when you weren’t looking I would take a sip

but I think you knew all along

A fly might drop in

and you would say that

this is because flies are thirsty too

and when he stoppped moving

you would take him out to fly again

only this time crooked

Out west we gazed with Ansel Adams Eyes

at Lovecraftian pillars melting with

a grotesque sense of moisture and when 

we journeyed further down it got cool 

and the air heavy with a subterranean weight

the crowd grew quiet but the handrails

were still greasy

we were certain that somewhere

there would be a hole to hell or somewhere

like it

where a hundred flash lights are dying as they fall

Like children we laugh at everything

phallic, which is everything

the sun is setting now and only

a single elevator works and we 

ran into the two hippie chicks who 

drank Texas beer in the Texas mountains

with us

The sun sets but the heat is still the same

I heard this before

Never listening closely

Tragically true

I wish the civil war in Syria would end.