Hell, Ken(neth), I love it.
Andrew
On 9 December 2012 05:03, Kenneth Wolman <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
> IN EARLY FALL 1978, BILLY JOEL BECOMES MY LORD AND SAVIOR
>
> Ruin is rising from the sewers: my wife's parents,
> 110 miles from New York, walking a colicky baby
> across the creaking floor at 3 AM, renouncing
> all hope, I who'd enter there.
>
> For Eastern Long Island is a wilderness:
> it is James Wright's Ohio
> with the added stink of dead fish,
> a cemetery of saloons and stock cars.
>
> Comes the miracle in the middle of the journey
> of my life: the Newark Star-Ledger and a job
> I am able to get at the landing above desperation:
> for the Circulation Manager is about to fire
> his stoner Assistant, and he hires me
> to be It in the last guy's place.
>
> Seven days a week: meet the truck, go home Sundays at 5 AM.
> The rest of the time driving an unfilled route
> over the back roads between Butler and Boonton.
>
> It is that darkness that draws me back over and over
> to this moment over 30 years gone, felt now forever.
>
> The car radio, AM only, plays Billy Joel at 4 AM.
> Out of the car, standing, taking a leak darkness,
> I thank God I am not a woman, and even so,
> there is Billy telling me he loves me just the way I am,
> or for someone to get out of his life and
> leave him alone.
>
> Black sky of stars, the million points of light.
> A lie.
> Not darkest before the dawn
> except perhaps on the Mayan calendar.
> Instead the beginning of darkness, relieved
> only for this first time by the vanity of hope
> the prayer that this will be the worst
> and that the Piano Man will lead me through
> the worst of times by the light glowing from within,
> the black keys shining like a beam.
>
> KW
>
--
Andrew
http://hispirits.blogspot.com/
'Undercover of Lightness'
http://walleahpress.com.au/recent-publications.html
'Shikibu Shuffle'
http://abovegroundpress.blogspot.com.au/2012/03/new-from-aboveground-press-shikibu.html
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