Jim from Jersey, I Hope the Falls Were Great; I Hope You're OK

We departed dark basement gate 16 to Syracuse
from the mess of New York's port authority terminal.
All was silent as,
everyone was OK with
letting loquacious Jersey traffic do the talking for awhile.

Yet,
as we bumped and raged along, showing
no mercy for potholes or lane-changing-horns,
mouths began to move, and short
words began to form. The sun

was just scattered modes of light
on the tired PA trees, when
Jim from Jersey, sitting slightly behind
and across the isle, began to talk to me.

We quickly agreed that the Mayans
were masters of the stars, kings
of celestial bodies, resting
in astronomical intricacies.

We agreed that they weren't profits;
and it was just by some sick twist of fate
that the world is ending so close
to such an infamous, arbitrary date.

We agreed that life is crude
and that, if we could,
we'd make god
fuck the asshole of the moon.

And as the bus filled up with chatter,
and weary sleepers waking up,
we hit a dubious bump in the road
that sent the conversation
spinning for sadder matters:

It was then he offered me a shot;

Turns out he had been drinking
at the bar since one o'clock,
and that's where he received his "good buzz"
that made him decide to go with it
- just get up and go;

Turned out that
he had a vivid dream of the Falls
the night before last,
and felt compelled to just get on the bus,
because he lost his partner 3 years back
to Cancer,
traumatically dying in Jim's arms.

But by then it was dark,
the clouds giving way to stars;

By then Jim was getting drunk
and talking about taking the plunge,
talking about how
he had spread his partners ashes in Gettysburg and downtown
and about how his life,
since then, has never been the same.

He had us at a bit less than strangers,
a bit worried,
and a bit more than saddened by
the time we arrived at the restless Syracuse city scape
15 minutes late

And as it would turn out:
we were home, safe and sound;
but Jim's bus was headed off further into a dark, unknown night,
heading off to the Falls.

Comments

  1. Really like this one. It gave me chills. i felt like i was there.

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

A Damning Calm (Nature's Rendition)