The Whiskey Mule Diner (on Caroline Street)
I was wandering out of Whiskey Mule, the night began
fading
The city is falling all over itself and dude, you smell
like onions
Taxis are hissing passing by just pissing, ripped
pantyhose legends prancing drunk.
Just ask the crooked mayor, he’s had his share of
temptations.
He’s burned all his morals and held his head high as
he’s collapsing.
Three women all believe that he’s dedicated, but he’s
living deep on the tip of the Dead-End hill.
The diner’s lights are blinking an epileptic fury.
The faithful and the shrinks are washing their cuts in
the sink.
They have been harassing their soldiers through the
flesh wounds of thunder.
Bullets and promises go damp with the blood circling
the city streets.
Just another cup of coffee surrounded by dust, rust,
and feathers.
Our minds remember the times as a child of walking with
family and preaching God to unlit skyscrapers
Bring light to this city you damn bawdy building!
Nasty voices call down to teach us new sinning that we
never knew would go past the blinds of those windows.
The cobwebs in the corners of the Caroline and Market
Street are doing a Cain and Abel waltz.
Across each other, intertwined while the poisoned neon
glow of the Whiskey Mule hits it.
Old men walking crooked onto the sidewalks with lust in
their eyes and itchy coats and itchy crotches.
They want to see the man play something from the 1950’s
‘til he is out again poisoned, asleep on the jazz piano.
Lifting Jesus to the ceilings, the waitresses are all crying except for the
one who’s always smiling and fetching her phone number to a plumber, a priest,
or a pariah that wandered in from the subway.
Sometimes this place has felt closed for hours,
sometimes it feels like it never stops breathing.
The fevers in this place is imminent and you walk out
with hash browns in your hair.
Feeling like a motherfucker stuck in the drain.
At Whiskey Mule you began your marriage to a suicidal levitation. You want to sit on
the back of a
1969 boss 429 mustang and pull at the corners of the hairs on your head.
Wailing to a friend that’ll die with you in the end,
"buddy, Let’s create some shooting stars tonight”
And you’ll battle the fog in your stupor, and you’ll
wish you had more pancakes and in circles
you’ll go,
pushing and shoving hobos until you’ll step on a broken bottle and crawl back
into the diner
...And some Barbara Mandrell will be playing Sleeping
Single in a Double bed.
You’ll feel like the stomach bugs are carving through
your skin.
Go home to the wilderness of a quiet
apartment
building that is surrounded by demons running around your head.
Drop the needle on the fading night. Another day stalks in and abruptly gathers
energy from the
lightbulb sun.
Watching the squalor fight the dandy with the curly
hairs falling out of your itchy scalp.
No longer a village wimp. You’ll take the bait to the next
offering. Tracy will shake the bottle
and you can’t
resist the bounce and the waves in the glass to the swarming through your
throat
And you’ll dream of the fandango on a cobblestone
bruising and the sunsets will sound like a sultry one-night stand.
Forget that crippling walk for just a little while and
cut that rope from the sky, little man.
You’re asking to be certified, You’re asking to be
hypnotized, but you keep asking to be recast as something
that doesn’t reflect in a puddle’s mirror, Jack.
The Whiskey Mule Diner on Caroline Street has good food
and sometimes bad.
It has murmurs of grandiosity and mistakes to be had.
It has the memories, the merging from man to fallen
angel.
It has the lazy eye blinking, It has the wisdom of a
desire to escape the straitjacket.
And perform magic that illuminates from the
squeezing.
My mind is heading to a new home,
Whiskey Mule
1971, Bakersfield Cold day, cracked around the edges but laying sweaty under itchy blankets. After 3 A.M. drinking Pinot Noir with mustachioed confessions. Can’t trust sidewinders walking when their sliding on slick brick roads blinding- The regular man walks around with sociopathic confidence, and he dreams of all the wars ending long enough that he can find him a lady. He wants a family and he wants to die from the cigarettes, he wants to live on nothing but pennies. He wants it all to be wrapped up for him like a present, but does he know how to praise. So he decides not to fear him, he shall not be dismayed. He walks with him on a sunset through the meadows- looking for that new wave. Drinking Pinot Noir and thinking outside the box. He’s that same old man he was yesterday. He’s invented himself excuses, he’s playing fast and loosely. Calling all the phone numbers in his paper wallet. Which lips will he kiss tonight, or will he be just biting on his? Chapped up and feeling cold- boned, drunk and sad. He drops out a few dollars for dinner with a nobody he knew from 19 years before. She didn’t like him then; she doesn’t like him now. But he’s already got images of him pushing up her purity veil and calling her his forever. More pinot noir for the dipshit. Close your eyes and wake up with the phone dangling from the phonebooth and a hard-on grin, jazzed up and creepy. Your brother’s wife and kids find you there. She is laughing pitifully. She has never cared for you really. The children hide behind an umbrella and a mask of ass and back covering their face to hide away from Uncle Stranger. He’s just a drunkened wolf wandering the streets, howling between the sheets of both polars he must face, day after day. He never really knows his eyes and can barely feel his face. He’s just molded full of lines with pinkish skin cheeks with an early morning yellow pickling through. Boy, he’s a pinot noir away from chasing Jesus to the cross. He wants to be crucified first, and let the city wash away his sins. That olive green mattress and his wino schemes has led him to three divorces and one incredible night that he relives over again and tries to regain back in his pulsing mind.
I called her up on a whim after a muddy day, a useless
brain
My hair was messy, not quite wakeful, I remember a time we skinny dipped together and had a picnic
about 20 Summers ago.
All that is left for Wanda
Is a smoking gun and a bottle of gin
Her eyes are heavy with worry
And her heart is heavy with sin.
I heard through
having to know
that fuckin' Larry was living in a prison cell.
He was a measly twerp back then, and a barroom skunk.
Even after all these years, I can still be irritated
when trying to hide my empathic heart.
The world around her is fading
As she stares off into the abyss
Her thoughts are dark and twisted
And she yearns to escape all of this.
The whiskey begins flowing like a river
and it taste about the quality of a ditch.
She dances to a sad tune by Crazy Horse.
She doesn't know where she's going.
But she knows it won't be coming soon.
She thinks of me as a little nosy and nutty,
some body odour, a wet dog on a rainy day
breath like Papst Blue Ribbon and well-made chili
Dude, just give me a break. I'm tired of man. Always
talks of jailbreaks.
You sound raspy and one breath from a lung collapsing.
But I'm still wanting you Wanda, and she just laughs.
"There's a memory of what could have been"
She begins to become quiet, glancing at a newspaper.
Feeling emptiness, looking at an unfunny cartoon and
laughing like the insane.
You can see in her eyes she was staring down the roads
of her past.
The clock is ticking faster
As the night draws to a close.
And all she can do is wonder.
If she'll ever find repose.
Smoggy night, frogs sound drunk. Neighbour boys throwing
rocks at trucks.
The wind is stout and erect, and pulling our brawny
bodies down easy in the chilly rain.
Is there no hope for her
As she takes one final swig.
And throws her keys to the mud.
Tells me she's heading to a rich palace far far away.
She disappears past the scarecrows and the hypnotizing
Eagle eyes
Leaving only memories of what she hid. What was said. What was gained. Can't soothe the sick.
The shadows reach out to her,
She staggers into the night.
The panoply of chickens follow
and my disease is too thirsty to ease her pain.
We both gave into the madness.
Mine is from years of regret in a rocking chair,
mine is hilariously laughing myself of the ironies of
death.
We all walk these twisted winding streets.
All that was left for Wanda, was hissing, was the sail to the chasm.
As a
youthful ant, believing love was real
I’d
search and preach, sometimes i’d creep
From
Earth, sands, heartache, one with the unnamed
With
laughter always knowing I had been used
I was
stepped on, ripped apart, but kept on walking
As a
descending star
I’m
falling, sinking, faint, into the grey
Bewitching
breeze, bending wishful knees,
Believing
in the green
With
tears always knowing I had been used
Like
overnight love.
Was left
solo, alone, but kept shining
As a
boring Hybrid Tea Rose
Some
have glanced, they have danced, drowning in
The
ideal romance
Never
finding a home, shunned once we see the evening’s eye
With a
wilting pedal drying from the use
Never to
be blackened, I kept my brightness
As a
cresting unbalanced river
I’d be
rowed away, negated to be safe,
Reserved
for the rain
I could
have easily flooded the plains
With a
rippled cry, feeling useless
Never to
be eroded,
I kept
on flowing
As a
human feeling
I’ve
learned my strengths,
Became
tough through the adversity
I’ve
learned to forgive,
Hoping
to someday myself be forgiven
Never to
be corroded by fear
Oh,
painting on the wall
Like the
devil
Burning
victims with a smile
Room
still silent,
Never
minding that tears are loud
I’m
cruising by,
Mind
playing energetic
Floating
like a missile across the veins
Echo,
echo, vibrate, nothing
Cold
glue stuck upon the heart, your shoe
Walking
lightly,
Then
stomping, seal it tight
No one
is new, no mind is new
It has
been used by many younger, much braver
Whispered
wiser
Painting
on the wall, so greedy
Clapping
together colours that are clashing
Beaming
eyes living for my ashes
Claws
digging inside my soul, scooping out the clarity.
David L O’Nan is a Midwest poet, editor and founder of Fevers of the Mind (www.feversofthemind.com)
He has been nominated for Best of the Net numerous times.
His books include The Famous Poetry Outlaws are Painting Walls and Whispers, Before the Bridges Fell, New Disease Streets, Cursed Houses, The Cartoon Diaries, Our Fear in Tunnels, Taking Pictures in the Dark and Lost Reflections.
He has edited and curated Fevers of the Mind Anthologies and several inspired by special editions from Kerouac to Plath to Cohen to Bowie and more.
