Desolation Summer

Desolation Summer

Last Spring
I waited downstairs
on the
empty street below.

After waiting a while
I tossed a penny
up to her window
but still she didn't show.

A thought came to me then
it told me to walk away.

I didn't need to
live through
that year again once through 1975 was plenty.

So I sit here in my hovel
and I wear
the required mask.

I know that
we shall live again
this too shall pass.

Starting on this poem
I pick for a topic.

A year
almost as odd
as this one.
Filled with humor
tension and fear.

It taxed my patience
wondering what
would come next.

One day after another
none better
and never the best.

It was 1975
all that adolescent angst.

As I read "Howl"
and "Planet News"
in my new abode
a tent in the back yard.

Spring came and went
dark and brooding
with a jester facade.

We were getting our kicks
way out in the sticks.

I was popping little white pills
and focused
on the white lines
of River Road.

Taxi driving
a few freaks
out to the rocks
of Mulberry Creek.

Jump cut to Summer
for me it was
Highway 61 Revisited
and Metal Machine Music
and "a lot of soul," he said.

Making my way through
Jack Kerouac
what few titles
I could find that year.

Summer vacation was on
I was now
in the practice room
of a band named Blue Heat.

I was writing lyrics
where the light was
by the window.

And there on that
Desolate weekend
in a shack outside La Grange
we recorded
a few more songs.

Where was Heather
she who
we fought over so?

She'd evaded us all
and was long gone.

We traded a few letters
me in La Grange
she in Dothan.

Swore we'd never forget
that lasted until mid-Summer.

I came back to the city
and was swept up
in a rapid fire
series of situations.

When there seemed
no other choice
but to follow
that political machine.

I was not surprised
we'd meet again among the pines.

I sat at the piano
and pecked out the tune
about an old man
who lived one yard over.

The Island Girl named Shirley
she was new in town
her father now stationed
at Fort Benning.

We made eye contact
and both knew
at first sight
we wanted to experiment.

She was fast
and used a New York twang
we clicked fast.

My father had given me
an electric blue
1969 Plymouth Satellite
she jumped in with me
for a ride.

I kicked the radio up loud
kicked in third gear
and listened
as she sang along
with the tunes.

In many ways
there never was another
dark night of the soul.

Quite like 1975
turned out to me
for both Shirley and me.

It taxed
my spirit and soul
the negative events
of that year.

Events that kept unfolding
ending so much
I had held dear.

Sickness and violence
in that strange new age.

I was buzzing along
Buena Vista Road
just past the Spiderweb
and cut in line too close.

Racism was real
I could see it
from my rear view
I could see the rage.

Rusty Volt shaking his fist
an ass whipping for me
from a football jock
I was suddenly on his list.

Hung a right onto
Lindsay Creek Bypass.

Time for some Steve McQueen
night moves.

Rope a dope driving
down the highway.

Shirley was laughing
but it was no joke.

My slick moves
in traffic
even I had to laugh
at those.

I was young and brash
and I spotted his car at times.

But I knew
the backstreets
better than him.

It taxed my imagination
to see such a negative scene.

It happened so fast
without foreshadowing.

We all made our way
through that dim
yet blazing year.

The best we could
any way that we could.

Living like an animal
perhaps
like Mother Nature planned
even giving up my name.

My father was angry
to the point that
he was stalking me.

I had broken the code
and he'd broken
my confidence in him.

I had stopped
by the house
Shirley was with me.

What was I thinking
that everything was rhetorical?

My father was next door
sitting with Robert
on the front porch.

I glanced as I passed by
saw his cold blue stare.

Then came the weeks
of intense
bitter disappointment
with everything and everyone
I had trusted.

Both sides were
against us
and Shirley folded
and her father put her
into another school.

I became withdrawn
strumming
"House of the Rising Sun"
for hours without even singing.

Rusty Volt caught me
in the parking lot
weeks later
one day after school

After the bottom fell out
and I
had conceded defeat.

But much to my surprise Rusty had changed.
Rather than fighting
he asked
if I had a joint to smoke.

The war was over
both personal
and in the 'Nam
just in time
in both cases.

Murder is a crime
The Clash set that straight
forty years ago...
"Know your rights... all three of them."

But all that
was still to come
in grim and greasy November.

Traffic on Cusetta Road
was backed up
like some funeral procession.

I slowly drove
as the rain fell
so all alone
again.

Madness and decay
as reality slips away.

If I had proof
it was a hoax
then I might have
joined him on the line.

But I learned
a long time ago
alliances
can be fleeting.

Those who stand
for abstract ideas
may sometimes fall
for anything.

-Will Dockery (July 19 2020)