Moose & Squirrel
my friends have an apartment on Front St
above Johnie's All Night Diner
a warren of hallways and rooms
we'd meet Saturday evenings
to drop acid
drink cheap sweet wine
smoke hashish
listen to music
everyone talking at once
listening at once
a chattering insect rustle
room vibrating walls leaking color
suddenly we leave a mass flight of movement
out on the street
eyes dilated like pie plates
felt like a vast round
rip in the fabric
and the world was rushing through
rushing into us we bopped
into Johnie's
to play pinball
ride it out
bars had just closed
place full of drunken hillbillies
pinball machine by the phone
enraged woman
screaming into the receiver
"I SAW YOU WITH THAT WOMAN!"
"I SAW YOU WITH THAT WOMAN!"
over and over
a contingent of police
file past
hundreds of them
one big happy family
we concentrate on our game
an exercise in control
reintroducing the fingers
finding the eye
persistence of vision
frame rate slowed
ball a smear of silver
flippered eternity
we walk by the Ohio
watch worms crawling out of the low banks
escaping rising water
Williamburg bridge at dawn
Multicolored clouds down river
Union Carbide Plant shift change fury
Sunday morning apartment
we take another half hit
so we can catch Moose & Squirrel
at 10
fire up the TV room
a pyramid of junk televisions
some working some not or
partly black & white color
some only one color
raw sick magenta
all table topped by an American Flag
myriad of candles
dripping down over white noise static
took a bit of effort
to turn them all on
finally, Moose and Squirrel
manic insanity in the Cold War bomb death
dream of country
laughing so hard
you forget who you are
TV's somehow getting each signal
at slightly different times
a ripple effect of events and speech
gag lines reflecting
resonance standing waves
structures both outside and inside
each flickering presence
then Mr. Peabody, a lesson, a moral
we listen rapt, silent
each has found meaning
deep meaning
only to loose it
by the next commercial
the party breaks up
we go our own way
to track down sleep, eventually
tomorrow
have to go back to college
