Brian Eckert

This poem appeared in Red Fez

I.

Went West

with dust of haunted dreams

in my blood

stopped just short of where

white caps crash against the sky

In Denver,

just to get away

because I have to get away from something,

just to kill some time

because I have to kill something.

 

Pioneers came West to below where

white caps crash against the sky

cuz the grass was greener

Pioneers still coming, like me,

cuz the sky is bigger,

the sky is so goddamned big

you swear you can see clear through to

Home

or wherever.

That something

we want to run back to

when the sky gets smaller,

the grass isn’t greener.

 

Girl at park bench

talkin to friends

bout how she woke up

this morning

naked

next to a stranger

What the fuck was I thinking?

she says.

 

Man shakes head

after receiving citation

from policeman

for no dog on leash,

For non-compliance.

Fucking cop,

he says.

 

Child in stroller

pushed by mother

who steps in dog shit.

Fuck,

she says.

 

Child cries out

cuz grass is already greener

cries out

cuz there’s already something to run away from

but no way to run away

cries out

cuz there’s already something to kill

but no way to kill

the pain

of living

in places

like Denver

or wherever.

 

The people in the city drive

West, towards

white capped skies

to get away

from

yesterday’s choices and

crying children and

policemen issuing citations and

shit.

Drive West

as a form of non-compliance.

Drive West

to get away from

the pain

of living

in places

like Denver

or wherever.

 

Western sky just before sundown

Emotes white hot blues

Into my blood

As the mountains send word East,

whispering of things West.

In Denver

where you can see the earth

run away from itself,

Kill the sky

 

II.  

Guy who calls himself Tex,

even though he’s from Missouri,

places my bag in the overhead compartment.

Tex came to Denver from Kansas City,

by Greyhound bus,

fuckin baby screamin the whole gotdamned way

Hoped the driver would kick ‘em out,

did Tex,

leave ‘em without no way to get nowhere.

 

I choose seat next to

older balding man, rather than pretty young girl.

Too much pressure sitting next to a pretty young girl.

 

Michael introduces himself.

Michael teaches philosophy,

lives in a world of ideas.

If you ever read On the Road,

he says,

this is one of the areas Kerouac described.

Dean Moriarty was a choir boy at

a church up the street.

Choir boy to Beat legend,

the stuff American dreams are made of,

I say.

Yeah I read On the Road,

read all Kerouac’s stuff bout

the kicks he had before he went

Off the Road,

drank himself to death.

 

Bus heads North, towards Wyoming,

past pale winter plains,

signs,

strip malls,

past McDonald’s

Subway

Burger King

Pizza Hut

Taco Bell

past farms,

bobbing heads thirsty for oil.

 

I read TIME magazine,

about the Recession,

War in the Middle East, Terrorism,

Environmental Crisis, Energy Crisis, Debt Crisis,

ask the philosophy teacher

what he thinks,

whether things are as bad as they seem.

The life cycle of a nation

is similar to that of a man,

says Michael. A country in decline,

like a person who’s lost his way,

often has to hit rock bottom

before it can start to turn things around.

 

Michael gets off in Fort Collins,

leaves me to a silent world of ideas about

America the Broken Man,

gets off and leaves me to

mountains, clouds, plains,

earth that’s green, brown, red, white, yellow,

spaces where trains look at home,

thoughts have room to travel.

 

Baby starts to wail as

we rise and fall through foothills of the

Rockies, North,

to Laramie, Wyoming.

Father, young skinny Mexican man,

in a 10-gallon hat,

rocks child, looks at wife and smiles,

his face seeming to say,

Wow, we made a baby.

 

Tex sighs.

Here we go again,

he says.

 

Laramie, like any city,

begins with signs,

telling people what to buy,

what to eat, what to wear, what to do,

what to be.

Even cowboys

need a style.

Even cowgirls go shopping,

when they get the blues.

 

Lots of trucks in Laramie,

parked in front of restaurants, motels, strip malls,

Home Depot, Lowe’s , Pottery Barn, Wal-Mart, Target.

There’s so much sky and mountain in Wyoming

that even views of  trucks parked in front of ugly buildings

look charming.

 

Bus stops at gas station.

Bout gotdamned time,

Says Tex.

Ain’t eaten in a day.

 

I buy weak coffee,

strips of dried beef.

Tex from Missouri buys

pizza, chips, giant soda.

 

Bus smells like

baby shit and gas station food.

Skinny Mexican man eats sugar packets.

Baby cries more, won’t stop.

Tex gives father corn chip,

for teething, he says.

Skinny Mexican man eats corn chip.

No says Tex,

for the baby,

his teeth are coming in, it hurts.

He shows him,

baby stops crying.

 

Gotdamned people don’t even speak English,

says Tex.

You got kids or somethin

I say,

Yep, one,

but she don’t want nothin to do with me anymore,

her or my wife.

Ex-wife, I mean.

Came back from Iraq fucked up.

Can’t explain it except that

I just didn’t know how to be a man anymore.

I’m tryin though, takin classes with the GI Bill.

And wouldn’t you know,

one of my professors

is a gotdamned Iraqi.

Damn, I prolly killed more of

you over there than there are in this classroom.

Prolly killed some of your damn

uncles and cousins,

is what I was thinkin.

Where you goin now Tex?

I say.

To Portland, to see the Ocean.

When I was in Iraq, with all that gotdamned sand,

sweating my ass off, waiting to get shot at

by the gotdamned Iraqis,

I used to think about the ocean.

 

Wyoming aint got no oceans,

only seas of pale grasses.

Wyoming don’t need no oceans,

cuz it’s already hemmed in by blue.

Utah don’t need no ocean either,

cuz its already got a lake

as salty as the sea.

 

I say goodbye to Tex,

tell em I hope he likes the ocean,

but for all I know,

he never got off,

he’s still riding the Greyhound bus,

watchin mountains, plains, rivers, forests, swamps,

dollar stores, grocery stores, electronic stores, clothing stores, sporting good stores,

pass by,

listenin to a baby scream,

thinkin about the gotdamned Iraqis,

not wanting to get off,

cuz its easier to sit and look out the window,

lost in a silent world of ideas,

than it is to get off and figure out how to be a man.