before push ups, after decaf.

sometimes on spring evenings after we've been out & already had 2 glorious beers & told stories of regretful moments & licked our lips with the spiciest food we could find -
yeah, i'll still looksee for beautiful little escapes from present certainty that I dare not face front forward -
hrs away from a repeat of yesterday,
the same thing tomorrow as today,
a long gray hay day
where i only parlay
with unsuspecting prisoners
of their own misfortune
already regretting past decisions
(ways to relate a day's wage).

before i'm able to take my muscle relaxer for the night i may treasure hunt seek for just such little missing piece of secondary rustic paper-electric fuzz stimulation (i usually can't find anyone) until my man heart revives it's waning melancholy droop-syndrome into mountain top fresh waterfall crisp air. it's during these times of perplexing mix-ups that i may stumble (like proper knee popping old man) upon explanations of life's intensity & delicate beauty-quite the conundrum if you've followed my path thus far into weary woods of miracle losers, but anyway-

things of interest, notes of subtle-ness, words of visual interpretation, kisses of meaningful delight, touches of warmth & love, pictures that move to create long, flowing symphonies of imagination, moments of bravery, moments of uncertainty for that matter, moments of hearsay/truth, really, stumbling bumbling along this broken rd of a wanna-be delightful path that forks & arrows uncontrollably & ambles downwards across rivers & forests where innocent bystanders have their cars & movers & shakers parked/pulled offways looking for better directions to the mountain top destination where the air is that much cleaner. & in these times it's when i wonder what old Duluoz woulda done to rid himself of indifferent thoughts to a more amorous place but it's not long before i can quite quickly take pages of mention & insert dull mind into relative heat reflex & imagine to get caught up fish like in a tale of his longing & desire only to have & love some woman that if my insights serve me expertly (&they do) he'd just like to have a few moments of romp & roll with her but his explanations of night time (or daytime for that matter) exploits should succeed in accomplishments bigger & further than the task at hand & I suppose at this time you should just take his word for it-

"........and woulda worked as a grim bejacketed gloved and bebaseballhatted brakeman in the cold New England night, for her and her Irish ivory thighs, her marshmallow lips, her and her brogue and "God's Green Earth" and her two daughters-- How I would have laid her across the bed at night all mine and laborious sought her rose, her mine of a thing, that emerald dark and hero thing I want---remember her silk thighs in tight jeans, the way she folded back one thigh under her hands and sighed as we watched Television together--in her mother's parlor that last haunted 1954 trip I took in Lowell--Ah, the rose vines, the river mud, the run of her, the eyes--A woman for old Duluoz? Unbelievable by my stove in desolation midnight that it should be true--Maggie Adventure--

& then after that, almost a little sad feeling among all that beauty & honesty because of just a slight inkling of a lingering moment where a little forlorn & lonely doubt creep in to that literary, traveling, bumbling, drinking, thinking, writing hero of mine- a slight realization that the possibility exists that sitting next to that midnight fire of his, that yes, it is now quite unbelievable that he'd
end up
wrapped up
in all that passion & lust-love & his dear tragic Maggie will end up just that, a tragic dream as his travels & promenades take him elsewhere - away from her thighs & she'll remain only an adventure in his memories between precisely now & the end of either his or her life. What a dream!

but you begin to see that through all this, these mind wandering, sauntering walks that we take together that these simple up's & down's are what life is mostly trying to convey to us, that there is no longer a flat, clear, playing surface-we are destined for bumps in the rd up to the mountain fresh brilliant sparkling water-air & if we can discover
nicks of beauty
or remember
thoughts of honesty
throughout the journey
then we are at least trying at something in life & who really knows what else?