| InTentCity
You call me, a voice from the past
You say you wrote from New
Orleans
and I didn't answer
I say I sent a letter, But I guess it
never arrived
Which // one of us // is lying
And I remember, I remember you:
Aryan eyes reveal nothing
Drawn from fire of one piece
The blade
as hot as your eyes in contemplation
Searing intelligence sung in a
castrato's voice
we met in Alaska, the final frontier
where men in bars ask you not
to dance but to fight
Wanting only free brewski, or sudden
violence
Akin to backyard football and sublimated homosexuality
"Do I want to fight?" I say, "I don't even know you."
Calm because the pool cue is in MY hands
a sudden WHACK and game
over.
You call me, and it all comes rushing back:
Men in two week flings
cut down in swathes
jeweled hilts spark
cheaply
iron will, cold steel appeals
I've been shucking shrimp 16 hrs a day,
7 days a week
My fingers
bloody, bloody stumps
Living in tent, in Tent City
faced down bears on their own turf
plundered Mother, Mother
nature
for 6 bucks per, 9 dollars over
Saw bald eagles diving,
catching, rising
slept on shore, ran over by high tide
Worked the night shift, lunch break at midnight
Knew the waitress,
and poured my own cup
Complained about the pancakes - Big
Mistake
She tells me, "Well, if you don't like it, go to the other 24
hr. cafe." There is no other 24 hr. cafe.
I shut up, praise the lord,
pass the syrup.
The midnight sun glows, my skin glows
and I think of you Fiona, my
sister, safe in S.F. safe like kittens, safe
Ahh, Kate, never called you Katherine, always Kate
You call me, and
it all comes rushing back:
5 men to every woman, Alaska is a MALE state
too many men packin',
swingin' low
heavy cajones, everyone wants to be the Alpha Male
To
the victor goes the spoils - Ho Yeah!
Do I wanna fight? Man, I don't even know you.
But one look at you,
hair limp from a downpour
fresh meat unloaded for male eyes on your
thighs
You didn't have a clue
Your hands were chapped from milkin'
cows in MinneSOta
(These Men wanted you to milk something else and I
admit, so did I)
5-1, but I beat the odds
Ran the race with the Georgian boy with the
eyes of a chameleon
broke the tape, won the prize
In Tent City, you cook your OWN food
Steal showers and avoid muskeg
-
the swampy bog called "Land" in these parts
I've liberated crabs on ice, caught for mass consumption
named you
// Sebastian or Bartholomew
before baptizing you in Boiling
Waters
liberated you from cartoon crustaceans
and men in Foam Rubber
claws - Dancing
You don't dance, and contrary to popular belief
You
don't scream, you just turn red and taste good
Ahh, Kate
Together we crack mountaintops
No, we crack
two-lips
Made one lung, one heart
breath and breath and breath.
Fiona! I call to you, I miss you my friend
You are in a sane
place
Not stripped to the bone, to the basics:
Food, sleep, sex,
shit, and sometimes, if you're lucky, shower.
(It's war, don't take it personally)
First big paycheck, over a grand, ka-ching!
I say, "Ever wanted to
just takeoff someplace, go to N'Orleans, just go?"
We found out Mexico's cheaper
and go there.
2 day stopover in S.F.
We run holding hands in a downpour -
It's
always raining with you and me, Kate.
We run into the
Castro
Bertolucci's 1900 is playing, and we sit under the huge
chandelier that would kill 16 rows of people in a sudden earthquake
I
say "Kiss me Kate," you do, the film starts
Time stops.
Puerto Vallarta, sleeping in hammocks bought out of the back of a
truck
the sound of waves crashing, a thunderstorm lighting the
sky
It's wartime, and the moon is bright
You say - "Hey, we should
go out and make love in the waves."
And I realize, sweating,
mosquitoe-bitten,
that's the last thing I want to do
This is the end of something.
It's always raining with you and me,
Kate.
And you call, and the waves crash, and the lightning lights up the sky
- And I can't forget
We fly back to Alaska
And I just want to make enough ka-ching!
to
ram-a-lam-ding-dong straight outa here.
I work 20 hr. days in a
daze
teenagers with carpal tunnel syndrome
forearms swathed in wrist
corsets.
It's fall, and the college boys go home
The Georgian Boy
says, "Man, I'm goin' back home sippin' mint juleps, and thinking of you,
smellin' like shrimp."
Next day he lost two fingers in the choppin' machine
WHACK!
...nothing to write home about...
You CALL and I REMEMBER, and I CAN'T SEEM TO FORGET
Kate has her pick of men, and I have my fill of shrimp
And you call, a voice shaking
as if it's ten minutes til the end of
the world
And I can NO LONGER FORGET
Alaska, the final frontier, where men in bars ask you not to dance, but
to fight - Ho-yeah!
And it comes GUSHING, like a wound gushing:
Do I wanna FIGHT? Yeah, I wanna fight
Cause in the fighting there's
forgetting and in the forgetting there's remembering when you call it so
intense it's so intense intentcity.
WangZen
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