Lest We Forget To Remember
There once were
Disparate nomads of intelligence
Kerouac of grass roots highways
Miller of international boulevards
Loners seeking solace off the beaten path for their discomfort
Whether low slung concrete buildings
With neon festering invitations of vacancy
Or
Sidewalk cafés of loneliness
Beneath Eiffel Tower backgrounds
Cow pasture reality needing to be told
Or cosmopolitan epiphanies needing consideration
Both wore stripes of truth
Their truth
Regardless of acceptance
One in cabins
Rooms
Motels
Dingy bathrooms of mold layered tile
Creature infested rugs
Threadbare sheets
To lie on
To love on
To Be as one with
Road tar smells
Diesel fumes spewing
Rumbling trucks passing
While all the while
Furiously filling page after page of
Pencil scratched impressions and insight
The other
Thousands of miles away
Seeing life similar but different
Espresso stained napkins with passionate words
Destined for banning in America
Even while knowing
Exile of mind
Knows no borders
Honest chronicles of life
Being freely expressed
Before the time of homogenized sterility took hold
Where one''s convictions became massaged
Hacked
Sliced
Hijacked
And if published
Marketed as mainstream mediocrity
How different
This road today
Dot com global highways
A flattened world
Presented on monitors
By claimants of any and all importance
Hunched over keyboards
Spewing shorthand distraction
Or longhand confusion
With some occasional exceptions
Voice actuation
Phantom keys
Touch screen execution
As if
As if...
We stand forewarned
As the earth is brought to us
We no longer seek It
Where once pencil and paper witnessed visceral experience
Now easily accessed through delusion''s virtual reality
Just a credit card away
Perhaps there is need
Maybe even a desperation unknown
To read some personal tenets uncompromised
Even if not yours or my convictions
And just for a few moments
Allow the senses to imagine books again
Because
If some of us are lucky
If we lean close to the pages
Allow the whoosh of the mundane to recede
We just might smell the tires on blacktop
Hear the Gendarme whistles
Smell the fresh baked croissants
We might even hear a pencil scratching on yellow lined paper
See the ghost like swirl of blurred syntax on coffee soaked napkins
Realize the quiet echoing of honesty
Fused with the recycled air of love and passion
Inhaled and exhaled ever so humbly
Creating a hovering presence
Where someone''s tenacious veracity
Like that of the "Cosmological Eye"
Or "On the Road"
Might find grounding
Step out the door with notebook and pen
Start down the road to anywhere and...
The days when you had to write a country classic or live in a commune of writers in the city to be recognized by agents or publishers, and then be carefully edited and typeset by them (and often promoted through bookstores, magazines, and newspapers), are gone.
They are still out there, jotting down notes, staying in cheap motels and experiencing life, writing out their stories on paper before committing to the computer. But one with talent and a good imagination can write a series of childrens' wizardly books, a potboiler of sexual fantasy, or a how to get rich book can become an overnight success or viral on the Internet.
It's okay to be nostalgic about those bad old days of angst and suffering writers with passion. In this incredible milieu of mixed writing they still exist, and the cream rises to the top. After twenty years of hard work, we all can become "overnight successes." Most won't.
Ron