CORONADO EAST

Don Gillette

Walking By The Nightpath

Quality Press 1987

All rights reserved. Printed in the United States of America. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews. For information address Nouvelle Press; 3449 White Pine Estates; Nashville, TN 37214

Contents

Handshake from a Stranger • The Wake for Mr. Riddleman • Birthday (12/8/86) • New Year’s Day in the Year of Our Lord, 1987 • Hip Shakin’ Jew Girls from the East Coast • Tape Recording Driving in the Car #3 • The Frog Princess • A Girl in Little Rock • Late in Winter • Letter to the Children • Penitent Penitentiary • Away From Home, Eating a Cheeseburger • Woodcutting • Conversation with Doctor Lucias Wongsley • Death to the Delusions • Phrases of Days and Days • Soundless Screams on the Pavement, Four A.M. • Stock Answers in Quarter Time • Tailpipe Manifesto with 30 Weight Oil • Telephone • Metal Grained Portrait in Clay • Easily Led, Hardly a Word • Imagery

HANDSHAKE FROM A STRANGER

Meddlers lurk behind closed doors

And come out at odd times

To pry and cheat and steal and lie.

They can be lawyers.

They can be priests

Or insurance salesmen.

THE WAKE FOR MR. RIDDLEMAN

An Epitaph

He was told that a job was a way to live

And he always gave what they told him to give,

And reported to work on time every day

And never complained about the amount of his pay.

So he came to be old and he sat in his chair

Unaware of the fact he was losing his hair

Or the lines on his face or his skin growing slack

Killing himself for a pat on the back.

And when he was sixty they gave him a watch,

(A reward for taking those kicks in the crotch).

And he moved way out west with his lovely wife, Fay,

And watched the watch ticking his last days away.

BIRTHDAY (12/8/86)

This is a real kick in the pants.

Sometimes, I leave in the middle of the dance

And take a seat on the opposite side

To watch the dancers who’ve all cried

Keep up the nightmare of reality

And retain margin sanity.

Left alone, westward bound,

No one here can hear a sound.

No one here can speak a word,

No words here can yet be heard.

Some are lost and some are found.

No one here can hear a sound.

Eyeless faces drift about here,

Mindless heads are very near here.

Thoughtless bodies try to get there.

Horror comes and says a strange prayer.

Millions and millions of citizens

Crowd the streets.

They jingle their pockets

And go to churches.

And Saturdays, they go to a show

To leave the outside out.

Thousands and thousands of other ones sit

In galleries.

They bathe in fluorescent light

And stare at the walls.

And when closing time comes

They leave the inside in.

Left alone, westward bound,

No one here can hear a sound.

No one here can speak a word,

No words here can yet be heard.

Some are lost and some are found.

No one here can hear a sound.

Eyeless faces drift about here,

Mindless heads are very near here.

Thoughtless bodies try to get there.

Horror comes and says a strange prayer.

At other times, it’s a pain in the ass,

Watching time as it tries to pass.

With what the hell is going on;

And what hour’s getting close to gone

And the thousand attempts I’ve made to forget

People I’ve known and people I’ve met.

It’s a roll of the dice; the methods of fate…

Time to run but not too late.

NEW YEAR’S DAY IN THE YEAR OF OUR LORD, 1987

Just another day;

Nothing to do with the madness in the world

In the year of our Lord, 1987.

Just like a yesterday;

Accepting the days of the days

In the year of our Lord, 1986.

And not speaking a word,

Not raising a voice.

No glue…

No glue.

directions from a map

money at the computer teller.

news from the tube.

There are no new year’s days

In the year of our Lord, 1987.

HIP SHAKIN’ JEW GIRLS FROM THE EAST COAST

Heads in the air,

Eyes flashing cold.

Hair pulled back tightly,

Heels clicking tile.

Cheekbones high,

Trapping that light.

Legs making motion,

Skin pure and white.

They’re the girls I love the most,

Hip shakin’ Jew girls from the east coast.

TAPE RECORDING DRIVING IN THE CAR #3

Too many bullets flying in the air tonight.

Too many people killing on the street tonight.

Killers brandishing

cheap rifles from K-Mart

Hung in the windows

of their pickup trucks.

Too many old people creeping the drive of death.

Too many young people flying the dream of death.

Killers wearing pacemakers

ready to quit

Wired into their cars

most built in Detroit.

Killers wearing

bottles of Budweiser

Snug between their legs

then thrown out windows.

Too many writers seeking inspiration in the night.

Too many artists watching the sky at night.

Too many scientists formulating in the night.

Killers with pens in their pockets

looking for a place to stop.

Killers with pain on their faces

hoping for a canvas.

Killers with numbers in their heads

waiting for a chance.

THE FROG PRINCESS

Her prince, out among the crowd waiting

No one knows the frog princess’ laughter

She sits behind a window collecting money

From movie-goers and children of the night

Knowing that a frog prince has lost his way

And stopping the old men—they forget to pay

Waiting patiently; needing just one more wish

An ordinary wish will make everything normal

In her hollow world of white day; red night

The frog prince watches from his black car

Then leaves quietly, preparing his papers

For one more night and silent searchings

At another place in another time, alone

A GIRL IN LITTLE ROCK

Here alone, no friend in Little Rock.

At night she watches the clock

And dreams of leaving it behind.

Days drag by on peeling hands.

During the day she waits and stands

By herself, no love to find.

LATE IN WINTER

Winter’s people are mad.

They beg forgiveness for wasted times

And times. And wish for promises spoken in hushed

hallways, behind closed doors. Never hearing,

never sleeping, barely breathing.

Colder winds are due soon; colder winds

carry changes

For days and lives and times.

Outside, others whisper discontent

Then offer prayers; they all repent.

It is not enough.

“We always get her a new hat for Easter.”

Waiting for the trash man to come on Tuesday

And take away the bags. Hoping for luck with

whatever is due. Never knowing,

always hoping, barely speaking.

Warmers winds are coming soon.

Outside, still others whisper their regrets

Then roll the dice and make their bets.

They are never enough.

LETTER TO THE CHILDREN

Shouting at the insanity inside the world and worlds of

fortune hungers and tellers and maddening priests and

priestesses who sell their souls (and a bit of the old

in-out on the side) to anyone with the cash and I’ve

not got the cash and not just them but most of the

others.

Screaming from the rooftops toward the makers and the

shakers and the reeling, sickening clowns making due with

what we’ve given them and then tossing it into the rivers

and sending it up the smokestacks into my air so I

can get it back again but different so it kills me and

mine slowly and not like a war at all.

And then waiting around to grow old or not so old

and wondering where it all ends if it ever ends and if it

doesn’t then where can we go and if we can so what?

Or sitting in THE HOME and rotting away slowly while the

new idiots who are just like the old ones ride on their

four-wheelers and wear God knows what to the places we

used to call “clubs” that were really roach motels hidden

in the cities and then they leave drunk and while they

sleep decide what happens next and they do it wrong

just like always and forever because they don’t know or

care about tomorrow and tomorrow doesn’t know their

name.

Shrieking down at them now for their blindness and their

frightening, bizarre, Dionysian ideologies and the loss

of their dignity and they also gave up ours and we’ve

grown so accustomed that we don’t give a shit how it

happened and we really wouldn’t care if it didn’t because

we’ve been blinded, too.

And then sitting back and trying to get used to it and

knowing all along that there was nothing not a goddam

thing we could do to make it stop but we didn’t try so

got what we deserved and so did I and you and anyone else

still left to wonder what happened years ago to make

things go so wrong with everything that was supposed to

be so right.

Little Lucifer started calling himself a god and nobody

stopped him because he was a stupid son-of-a-bitch and a

joke wearing a blue blazer with a crest on his pocket

that looked like the Olympics where going to start at any

time and people pounded the walls telling others to be

quiet in a sign language mockery while they dropped coins

into slots to see just about everything they needed

to see without losing their minds; still it was too late

for them and most likely for all of us.

And there’s very little, little sense in crying over it

now or even thinking about it now because in a

thousand thousand years we won’t give a fuck and they

won’t give a fuck and no one anywhere will cry or

care.

And so we still sleep with our eyes closed and ignore

knocks on the door if it’s after eleven.

PENITENT PENITENTIARY

Every room’s a prison cell and some more so than others,

And every man’s a criminal and every man has brothers

Who trample into stately castles looking for a meal,

Or simply looking, searching slowly, coming in to steal

Souls from chair-bound passers-by reading books into the

night

Playing foolishly, so foolishly their hands burn in the

candlelight.

Trying desperately to be alone, unbothered anytime

That they seal their windows and in so doing cannot

commit a crime.

AWAY FROM HOME, EATING A CHEESEBURGER

I saw her working at a fast food place, too much makeup

on her face,

She was no more than seventeen but brought to mind a

beauty queen.

She was sorting through the napkin stack (by the way, she

was half white-half black)

Which made me no difference (and that makes sense).

I’ve gone away since (sure she’s found a prince),

But still, I looked at her and she at me.

WOODCUTTING

The angry buzz of chain saws swirl

through misty, dew-filled daybreak;

Tiny bits of wood chips twirl

and fall in piles that saws make.

While trees fall loudly into brush

leaving jagged stumps behind,

The air is gone of morning’s hush;

Only children seem to mind.

And afternoon is far away

When woodcutting is done,

Then children enter there and play

Until the setting sun.

CONVERSATION WITH DOCTOR LUCIAS WONGSLEY

Little time left for the rest of it;

Little time left.

Old friends call off dancing markers

And take steps forward by the sound.

No room for lofty promises

Or lifting premises.

No time for looking out;

No time looking out.

Yesterday calls from a deep, dark castle

And is ignored.

Tomorrow peeks around corners

And comes in with the markers;

Makes its face known in the passing of strangers,

And time turns round backwards

And lets it in.

DEATH TO THE DELUSIONS

“Death to delusions!”

cried the tired, young woman.

“Death to them all!” she barely whispered.

They rose as one, became rigid

With anticipation.

And then she lay slain,

Or so they thought,

In her tattered white nightgown

one night last May.

And they left by the front door,

went to their homes

in the city,

Feeling no pity, feeling no shame.

The tired, young woman

arose from her bed.

“Death to delusions,” she said.

PHRASES OF DAYS AND DAYS

Once a holiday

Came in March

And lasted a week,

But they stopped it.

Preparing took time

Perhaps that is why

The holiday came and left

Or perhaps it was killed.

There was nothing to do

But count the lines on our faces,

Perhaps the meaning is blurred

Into blank phrases of days and days.

SOUNDLESS SCREAMS ON THE PAVEMENT, FOUR A.M.

Mouths open, voices strangled;

The cold brings white fog from nostrils

And it wafts over the pavement

And heads for the sea

Where breaking daylight

Brings breezes. It vanishes

And reappears on the horizon

Mingling with the clouds of others

From around the world

Sounding like nails dropped

In a thousand empty wine glasses

From a wedding without guests.

Heady incense burns without smoking

And the stink of old tennis shoes rises

In the distance

And mingles horribly

With the morning tide

Disappearing in the wet sand

And opens its eyes to the day

Over gray shingled roofs

Past barely green branches

To the place where others go

In the drab underground

Of yesterday.

STOCK ANSWERS IN QUARTER TIME

Muffled figures cloud the panes

And take Tylenol to ease the headaches

From too much night

And dim light.

Unpleasant odors rise from the grates in the sidewalk

And overcome the scent of frying onions

Or stale drink glasses

As time passes.

One part from this, one part from that

And soon the image blurs the sight

Peacefully. Quite content

With what was meant.

TAIL PIPE MANIFESTO WITH 30 WEIGHT OIL

Tired, old tires

Meet with weary weird roads.

Like threads they thread their way

Down roads they rode before

And sing songs in song-song rhyme

Until they’re there

To take the talk

Of miles and miles

From one for one

To the other.

TELEPHONE

A wandering voice in the distance

Speaks in middle class tongues

And years for tomorrow

Or the hope of today.

The calls go both ways

And the callers lie

To each other and they

Talk of the same things.

And they keep a safe distance

On the telephone lines

Never knowing the future

But wondering

In dreams.

METAL GRAINED PORTRAIT IN CLAY

to avoid the coming desert

They walked into the future

And came out on one side called by

Two high school girls. One on each arm,

They gave up ten dollars,

and some of their lives

(They could afford it)

And went to the house

for something to happen.

This happened:

They stayed for ten minutes.

They thought it was nice.

They thought it was normal.

They were right of course,

But sick.

EASILY LED, HARDLY A WORD

Always wanting, never waiting,

Difficult to end: