Cinnamon Whiskey: A Drunken Psalm

 

 

 

In some moment, between shots and philosophy, I’ll confess I’ve been lost for years and you, a little drunk, will ask, “Where did you go?”

 

You’ll sleep before I can try to answer and I’ll do that silent time travel bit on the floor, in the corner with the light from an afterthought television on my arms.

 

I’ll drift past the clubs and stages where I once leaned and stood, the songs and voices humming through years with the tube glow feedback of hope and doubt, not quite enough blood on the finish. The exile of numb silence broken only by an occasional wind noise mistaken for the scrape of a pick across steel strings.

 

I’ll remember Vegas. I came back with nearly the same amount of money but a stronger addiction to neon. The street card flickers and English cocktail waitress live forever in my missing time daydreams. The laryngitis dancer sings me to sleep every night.

 

There was Highway One, on the edge of the Pacific. It smelled like freedom for a day with its Laguna Beach paradise tease and the promise of a world invisible beyond a water horizon. Nothing is everything never known.

 

And the other Highway One, along the South China Sea. The blue and green fishing boats, the bays and bridges in a bus window at dusk where images of a trip inland to Cu Chi can float. Cu Chi, where the woods are gone but bomb craters and my father’s ghost remain.

 

What about the hospital room? The one where I watched my mother leave after days of morphine sleep with a wince and single tear from the corner of her eye.

 

Then there are the stagnant rooms, the dusty moments when I learned of another friend lost. Then another. And another. The Season of Goodbye has been a long one.

 

Where did I stay?

 

In some moment, between shots and philosophy, I’ll confess I’ve been lost for years and you, a little drunk, will ask, “Where did you go?”

You’ll sleep before I can try to answer and I’ll do that silent time travel bit on the floor, in the corner with the light from an afterthought television on my arms.

I’ll drift past the clubs and stages where I once leaned and stood, the songs and voices humming through years with the tube glow feedback of hope and doubt, not quite enough blood on the finish. The exile of numb silence broken only by an occasional wind noise mistaken for the scrape of a pick across steel strings.

I’ll remember Vegas. I came back with nearly the same amount of money but a stronger addiction to neon. The street card flickers and English cocktail waitress live forever in my missing time daydreams. The laryngitis dancer sings me to sleep every night.

There was Highway One, on the edge of the Pacific. It smelled like freedom for a day with its Laguna Beach paradise tease and the promise of a world invisible beyond a water horizon. Nothing is everything never known.

And the other Highway One, along the South China Sea. The blue and green fishing boats, the bays and bridges in a bus window at dusk where images of a trip inland to Cu Chi can float. Cu Chi, where the woods are gone but bomb craters and my father’s ghost remain.

What about the hospital room? The one where I watched my mother leave after days of morphine sleep with a wince and single tear from the corner of her eye.

Then there are the stagnant rooms, the dusty moments when I learned of another friend lost. Then another. And another. The Season of Goodbye has been a long one.

Where did I stay?

“Never mind,” I’ll say when you lean out of your dream and ask “What?”

Let’s not talk. Let’s drink cinnamon whiskey, then kiss long kisses while Sebadoh drones, beautifully drones like electric monks in a paper cone pagoda named Hôm Qua.

“Never mind,” I’ll say when you lean out of your dream and ask “What?”

 

Let’s not talk. Let’s drink cinnamon whiskey, then kiss long kisses while Sebadoh drones, beautifully drones like electric monks in a paper cone pagoda named Hôm Qua.