Robert Bogan Austin, Texas
PARABLE OF THE PINON
This is a poem for Elsie
and the summer of 1969
that white hot summer of
Woodstock and moon rock
at the end of a white hot decade,
when Manson's apotheosis unspoke life
with a carving fork through
Sharon Tate's full womb,
when the last Kennedy took a long dive
to the bottom of moonlight bay,
when the jugband poet showed us
you can blow your brains out
with an insulin syringe.
This poem is for Elsie
whom I barely remember
and for Sante Fe
whose memories are still vivid
and for Albuquerque which I've been
trying to forget ever since
the summer of 1969
when everything south of
Sangre de Cristo mountains
and west of Sandia peak
was white hot dry and deadly--
the broke-off butt of defeat,
bitter grounds in the pit
of the last rank cup.
Wheelless we rode from
Austin to Brady to Lubbock,
hopping hitches westward,
loping under the black and crystal
cosmos in the back of an open landrover,
sharing our vanishing stash
with drivers who wound us
through miles of mountain trails
long before dawn, till we found
the red white and blue mailbox
that masked the sleeping eye
of Ojo do Casa commune,
some bogus hippie mining claim,
closet for unworldlies who offered us
homini, hemp and hep,
and a dead gutless buckshot Ford body
to live in as long as we wished.
We spent most of our cash
on a bus ride north to Santa Fe
to crash (and burn) with Huff and Jan,
[the wealthy porno prince and his princess]
who watched Elsie role-play a job hunt
and heard me try to tune my fiddle,
silver strings bought with half
our remaining cash.
Then we hitched south to Albuquerque
with just enough left
to pay two weeks' rent
on a roach and rat ridden, slime green
cinderblock duplex whose only
ornament was the ubiquitous blue
of morning glories that grew
with abundant abandon
all over the neighborhood
like money compounding intrest
in the bank of future hallucinations.
Like shy virgins we signed for
our first book of food stamps,
counted them out at Safeway
right along with the other Indians,
went home and burned the first batch
of cornbread mix. After packing
a picnic of peanut butter and
mescaline sandwiches, we city-bussed
and hitched to the Sandia Peak tram,
soared skyward like a slow rocket,
found good seats at the top and watched
a sunset neither of us will forget.
Elsie got a steady job posing bareass
for life drawing classes at UNM
while I sat in the student union
trying to remember dreams
so I could write them down
dreams about anonymity
dreams about gliding down
alleyways in the dead of night
past sleeping strangers' houses.
So I called Clif at the paper
and told him I'd like my job back
but we'd both regret that before long.
I hocked my camera, gave Elsie the receipt
and grabbed a Hound for Austin.
Couple months later, I sent her the cash.
She bought back the Bolex, boxed it
and shipped it back to me.
She was good about things like that.
There was much good in her
and that's why I'm writing this poem.
Things were much different
back in the summer of 1969 and
I didn't care for much, least of all Elsie
or myself. But now I write
a poem about that time
because something good was there
and something good remains
hanging-on to the lifeless
rocky drop of Sandia Peak
like a dogged stringy pinon tree.
Something soft and sweet and good,
timeless as a desert sunset
like the speck of meat
inside the stubborn stoney shell
of a pinon nut.
robertbogan@sbcglobal.net © 2005 Robert Bogan