CLEAR PATHWAY HOME

Quietly nursing a beer

anxiously awaiting a cup of chili

listening to two young ladies

that somehow lost their way—

couldn’t rent a car

couldn’t get a hotel,

missed a concert, had a 5 AM flight

a lot of porno flicks start out like that

but I’m not qualified to direct or star

I come up short

in both categories

no skill with a camera

and well, you know

we don’t need to go there

It’s not common decency

keeps me from posting dick pics

I wish I had words of wisdom

or at least some witty repartee

but I sit quietly sipping beer

a game is played by God knows who

airing on a flat screen TV

I feign interest in the action

It’s fucking baseball
I’d have a better chance popping a boner

watching paint dry on a fence

the two young ladies converse

with an elegant elderly woman

they’re having a good time

in spite their run of bad luck

I can see I’m not needed here

but the chili is warming

and I have a clear pathway home

and a dog waiting there

that actually does think I’m special

https://www.postpoems.org/authors/georgeschaefer/poem/1109907

YOU REALLY SHOULD KNOW BETTER

You’re 57 years old

You really should know better

(and you do know better)

but knobbly knees

you go with the flow

and succumb to darker angels

You are old enough

You really do know better

yet still

you make the call

a shot of Rock and Rye

Original Jacquins

experiments in liquor

and the effects on human bodies

way too early, way too late

pretend you don’t know better

it’s still mid afternoon

and shots have been absorbed

You’ll regret it in the morning

You’ll regret it in an hour

You really do know better

and yet still

here we are

sitting in a local watering hole

and it’s happening

You hear the chatter at the bar

It reaches deafening levels

with only about six people speaking

getting louder and louder

You watch the bartender pour the shot

Regrets will be abundant

but it’s still a moment

lived in real time

for better or worse

You’re 57 years old

You really should know better

https://www.postpoems.org/authors/georgeschaefer/poem/1127168

PART OF THE PROBLEM

so I descend

wishing to traverse time

Hemmingway drank here

with a cast of ne’er do wells,

pirates and twisted characters

but the color and flavor

altered and diminished

by tourists eyes glued

to hand held devices

complaints about hotel pillows

irreparably destroy the mood

I’m drinking craft beer

out of a souvenir plastic cup

so I have to own the moment

that I’m part of the problem, too

I look across the street

at souvenir shops

guessing they weren’t there

when Ernest was getting plastered

and regaling his court of misfits

It occurs to me that

a great novel isn’t going

to be started tonight

Maybe we’ll just settle

for a whiny ass poem

about how much things change

I can gripe about modern life

and all its folly

and skillfully omit

how much I’ve also become

an epic part of said problem

https://www.postpoems.org/authors/georgeschaefer/poem/1102676

THE ELECTRIC JIMMY SWAGGART ACID TEST

It can be really intense when you take acid and I’m not talking about fake shit.  I mean reality and real intensity.  There was one time when I dosed with a few friends.  It was good liquid about 250 mikes a hit.  I indulged in two hits.

We were restless so someone go the bright idea to cruise over to Lambertville and climb the Devil’s Tea Table.  This was a small mountain in New Jersey that had a small rock formation at the top known as the Devil’s Tea Table.

So now you have 6 guys with heads full of acid climbing a mountain at sunset with a single flashlight.  Everyone made it up the mountain alive but it the sun had quickly faded into night.  It was time to head back down the mountain.  The batteries in the flashlight went dead on us so we were trying to use lighters.  The lighters didn’t provide much in the way of light.  The crescent moon wasn’t providing much help either.

There were points that it was real dark.  You could occasionally hear animals and insects and it was hard to see what you were stepping on.  It was a dangerous game played in the dark.  I remember almost stepping off a cliff.  A couple times tree branches sought for support were snapped by our weight.

There were portions of the descent, I was simply on my back sliding down the cliff slowly.  It was a truly life affirming experience.  My survival instincts kicked into overdrive.  I was like:  “ I want to live!  I WANT TO LIVE!”  

Let me get down off this mountain.  I reached a point that I didn’t care about the dirt.  I didn’t care about the bugs or  the poison ivy.  I just want to get down off this mountain.  We all used our voices to guide one another and we all slowly made our way down the mountain.

“I want to live!” and live I did.  We all got down the mountain alive and returned to a friend’s house.  We were all hyperventilating.  A couple guys left and went home.  There’s a couple guys from this night that I never saw again.

A couple of us dropped another hit and drank some more beer.  It was now morning.  The TV was on and somehow the channel we turned on featured Jimmy Swaggart putting on a hilarious performance.  He was pointing out all us sinners.  We were all in stitches laughing at his sermon.  It was incredibly funny at that particular moment.

To put it in context, I foolishly risk my life on a mountain for no good reason and return to this shit:  a flimflam preacher related to Jerry Lee Lewis going on a rampage.  It takes a strong dose of acid to be able to appreciate the subtle absurdity of the moment.  Kareem Abdul Jabbar was right.  The dilemmas life throws at us are often rather insane and absurd but at least now we can all laugh about it.

https://www.postpoems.org/authors/fuche_bu/prose/1064676

based on a true story from over 3 decades ago.  The Kareem Abdul Jabbar reference is to a quote from a 1982 Playboy interview where he said “I don’t think you can fully appreciate all the subtle absurdities of life until you’ve taken a powerful hallucinogen.”

TEMP WORKER

I guess

nobody

likes temp workers

they take up space

take up jobs

often shit jobs

no one else wants

like undocumented fruit pickers

the temp worker

is pariah par excellence

slipping in

earning a few bucks

and disappearing

before learning

any names or faces

This one time,

not at band camp,

I was a temp

toiling at a box factory

actually named Acme Corrugation

just trying

to earn a few meals

keep a roof over my head

another week

another month

We fed cardboard sheets

into a machine;

corrugated boxes

the end result

boxes to be filled with wares

endless capitalism perpetuated

It’s inglorious work

Milhouse’s dad

worked at a box factory

no wait,

a cracker factory

the box factory

was a field trip

that gave Skinner a hard on

the whistle blows

breakfast break

grab a sandwich and coffee

feel daggers

from the glares of the perms

I sit alone, eat alone

chug my coffee

fast enough to induce palpitations

the machine

and the cardboard awaits

and I wonder how many weeks

as I muse

and wax nostalgic

the machine

 jams up

I’m sure

there will be

Hell to pay

but I’m just a temp

woefully indifferent

already figuring

I have one foot

out the door

to patiently await

the next soul crushing,

demoralizing gig

https://www.postpoems.org/authors/georgeschaefer/poem/1124290

PAKISTAN JOE

I was 16 years old and in all probability working illegally.  I had taken a gig as a busboy at a local diner.  I was working the graveyard shift from midnight to 5:00am on weekends.

After hour gig

bussing tables of the drunks

virgin cherry popped

I befriended the dishwasher.  He told me everyone called him Pakistan Joe.  He assured me I couldn’t pronounce his real name. I only asked once but we were pretty high at the time.  We got high out in his car during breaks.  It was usually my weed.  My weed was usually cheap dirt weed.  I was buying it on a busboy salary.  He did offer me swigs of some rot gut whiskey in return.  He talked about the world, weed, wine and women.  He was always quick to crack a joke about anything and everything.

That rot gut whiskey

burning brightly in my gut

eyes popping open

It was always a good time.  Every 16 year old needs to be exposed to the suburban drunks filtering into an all nite diner for 3:00am breakfast.  It’s really how you learn about life.  They say it causes great harm but I survived and thrived.  I learned since to drink better whiskey and smoke better weed among other things.  Pakistan Joe may not have been the best sensei but there was wisdom gained from the friendship and I pour a shot to his memory tonight.

Old Pakistan Joe

a not forgotten mentor

remembered fondly.

https://www.postpoems.org/authors/georgeschaefer/prose/1105106

SQUANDERED SERENDIPITY: A Second Helping of Cannibalized Haibun: Schaefer, George: 9798354488872: Amazon.com: Books

DELIRIOUS LIGHTNING

The music at the Peach Festival was always unreal.  Every band brings their A game and you just expect magic.  The Claypool Lennon Delirium was on fire.  But it was a dark overcast day.  The clouds kept getting darker as the music progressed.  Off in the distance, you could see bolts of lightning flashing.  Maybe it was just the acid but the lightning seemed synchronized to the music.  I kept thinking, “Man, this almost seems like a special effect.” But of course an effect that good would require some serious technology and some serious scratch.  Delirious lightning can be its own reward.

most delirious

the bassline echoes thunder

psychotic nature

Slowly it begins dawning on me that this is real lightning off in the distance and a hard rain is gonna fall on the concert field real soon.  This when you start noticing that other people are beginning to hurriedly pack up their lawn chairs and fold up their blankets.  The wind is getting more intense and the sky is starting to spit on you.  Damn, this might be as good a time as any to pack up your own shit and head for cover.  It will be crowded and humid under the pavilion but at least it will provide a modicum of protection.  You rouse your friend to begin the move to safety.  The music is soon cut short and you are now crowded with a bunch of other folk under a pavilion waiting out a storm.  It still is funny thinking of how well the lightning was synchronizing with the music.  It was almost like telepathy.  I suppose acid is a funny drug as it leads you to think of such things.

synchronicity

delusions of neon lights

lightning as lasers

It was a brilliant set cut short.  The storm was pretty intense but we were relatively safe and had hid until the weather passed.  There would be music again shortly.  Trey Anastasio would bring out his band to help us forget about the thunderstorm.  Eventually, you do come down from the trip.  It’s always nice to still be alive and still listening to music.

the music did pause

but rhythms of life survive

live another day

https://www.postpoems.org/authors/georgeschaefer/prose/1098589

Cannibalized Haibun: Schaefer, George: 9798416456573: Amazon.com: Books

CRIMSON WHITE AND INDIGO

It was a hot fucking day in July.  We were young and gloriously naïve.  The Grateful Dead were set to pack JFK for a jubilant celebration.  Shakedown Street was shaking as all the Deadheads shopped for tie dyed t-shirts and kind grilled cheese sandwiches.  JFK was an old decaying stadium and one could envision gladiators in leather helmets going to battle on the field of honor. 

Decrepit bathrooms

a parking lot full of dreams

liquid joy bestowed

Bruce Hornsby set to open up the show.  He was Jerry’s buddy and some of us knew how good he was.  It meant going in early and enduring the heat.  Harken back to those gladiators.  We can tough it out ourselves.  Lest we knew a final celebration in an antiquated house.  Inspectors were in the stadium day of making a final condemnation of JFK.  An announcement of closure and destruction less than a week away.

Fall apart slowly

not suited for rats or bums

but Deadhead approved

It was a grand time.  Certainly not there best but some interesting songs in the mix.  They should have played “Samson and Deliah”  but I’m guessing they didn’t know themselves.  The inspectors condemned a building but were willing to let 80,000 Deadheads face the danger.  They didn’t realize it during the show but they were going to tear the whole building down. 

So we danced joyous

in the soon to be ruins

blissful unaware

An estimated prophet took a wharf rat to Hell in a bucket and the other one turned on your love light. A little red rooster standing on the moon gave scarlet begonias to a loser.  Not necessarily in that order.  We elevated our consciousness as we sweated away impurities in our hearts.  We filtered out feeling good.  The party continued on to the next stop on the tour.  Soon we would learn the news.

An old piece of shit

we miss her in spite the flaws

some joyous moments

lifted spirits brief moment

not knowing we said goodbye

https://www.postpoems.org/authors/georgeschaefer/prose/1106744

SQUANDERED SERENDIPITY: A Second Helping of Cannibalized Haibun: Schaefer, George: 9798354488872: Amazon.com: Books