MICHAEL ROTHENBERG
NARCISSUS JOURNAL - part I
July 20
Weathermen expect heavy thunderstorms for east Colorado
July 21
Bug corpse graffiti on windshield
Wind steers the steering wheel
The Churches of Quinter Welcome You!
Abilene, Topeka
"Kansas City here I come!"
Bob Dole country
Birthplace of Amelia Earhart
Home state of two astronauts
Drowning in a wheat field in Kansas
July 22
Fried eggs, country biscuits, iced tea
Ozark Land
Home cured ham
Corn Fields
St. Louis Arch
William Burroughs lives somewhere around here
Illinois State Line
Redwing blackbird
E. on I-64
Hawk soars
57 south to 24 south
Nashville
July 23
Barber sitting in two chair shop
Not a hair brush in the place
Combs, razors
Radio plays country
He nicks my ear
Treats flow with styptic
Wants to shave my back
No thanks
No one knows who’s in control
In Nashville they lament they turned Elvis away
Elvis came back just the same
July 24
Why do I run, Narcissus?
On a highway
in Kansas
reflections in a glass of iced tea
in shoreline pools of Lake Tahoe
in Kentucky prisons
Candlelight Restaurant, home cooking
in catsup. . .
I ask for well-done potatoes, they give them to me raw
I'm willing to accept these Tennessee-style potatoes
Nashville Motel and Truck-Stop Complex off Trinity Lane
Gas up
Stuff down baked ham, biscuits
Here I come Alabama, surprise me!
Magnolia blossoms
Montgomery, capital of Alabama
Okra, Spanish moss, oak trees
Drive carefully down country roads
Drunks
Bird hunting
Deer grazing
Wild turkey
Crepe myrtle
Southern cedar
Mockingbirds
Dead cars rust in fields
Jump around visit a couple of folks
No earthly idea
Ponds
Nice sunset
You see the Milky Way
July 25
6 am Chuck on all night drunk drags me from sleep
We stop on the roadside listen to every kind of bug dawn bird noise
“Apologize for the traffic,” he says,
parked on red dirt road, lips around whiskey bottle
Not car or soul around
“Apologize for the traffic,” he says,
again
Screwdriver in the throat of tape deck
Shotgun shells and rubber worms between my feet
Bombed in a trashed out black Camaro sunrise
We visit an old man putting gas in his tractor
Walk with him to the porch
He sits down in a rusty old chair, complains he can't spit without teeth
Tobacco dribbles over his stubbled chin
He pours himself a whiskey with a Coca-Cola chaser
Says, "Enjoy women now, you've got plenty of time for drinking whiskey"
Chuck goes inside the house and comes back
with a straight razor, wet towel and a cab if Barbisol
Chuck shaves him
July 27
I do questions not answers, that's my way out of this
I'm going to turn this around, do answers not questions
Georgia, Welcome
83 miles to Atlanta
Highway Dept. paints a white line in the road
Look at the people I pass
Graffiti advertising blow jobs
on Days Inn truck-stop bathroom wall
beside prayer asking God
to send his son back to save this wicked world
Welcome to South Carolina
Welcome to North Carolina
I smell rain
Cool down
Fast food signs trigger deep-fried nausea
Deep breath of rain
Dark clouds
Driving into a storm
Lightning flashes beyond road curve
Welcome to Virginia
July 28
Is there a pot of gold in the middle of the road?
"Don't get mesmerized by the road
you might start thinking you are the road
and you're not"
Mirrors are where they should be
The same sunset in 200 motel rooms
TV bolted down to the dressing table
Sanitary wrapped plastic cup
2 X 1/8th inch soap wafers
Idling trucks like Nashville trucks, all night idling
Welcome to Maryland
KEEP THE FREE STATE FREE FROM LITTER
Baltimore
Tunnel bumper to bumper
Carbon monoxide fumes
Claustrophobia
$1 toll
VIRGIN—TEACH YOUR KIDS IT’S NOT A DIRTY WORD
Virgin in bloody red letters
Free State
Welcome to Pennsylvania
America Starts Here
*
Welcome to New Jersey
Bumper to bumper
Stereo cranked up
Nervous thrum of engine, traffic
Diesel smoke, heat
Bumper to bumper to peaceful old neighborhood on Ave. B
In Port Washington a silver-haired lady mows the lawn
Does Dawn live here?
“When she's here,” the lady says and continues about the yard
July 29
Massapequa
Suburban circa 1940's house
Blue hibiscus
Red geranium
Europe from window of bus
Replica of Eiffel Tower
London scenes on black velvet
Bavarian mugs
Model of Concorde
Commemorative dishes of Coliseum
Hand-painted scenes of winter in Vermont on a crosscut-saw
Ship in a bottle
Tourist map of Bermuda 1609 in wood frame
Narcissus in white shorts, white shirt
Red hair
Cheeks aglow from riding about childhood haunts
in a rented convertible
*
Narcissus putting on make-up
Do I have sneakers to run?
11 a.m., I'm not ready yet
Sip second cup of coffee from a Florida palm tree coffee mug
Take another cup of coffee outside, sit beneath an umbrella
look down in a plastic pool. . .
Narcissus
*
We sit on a concrete bridge
The reflection of two faces turned in opposite directions
July 31
We’re romantics
But will we live out of storybooks and myths?
I came to see myself in a duck pond
She got here on her own
Clutching the chain link fence in the yard
Climbing desperately for freedom
They caught her and made her put on a skirt
