the calico cats learned to sing

he imagined a blow job in a wind tunnel,

but it was too damn cold.

he saw fall leaves trip on good acid,

scattering beyond,

totally out of control.

his balloon burst.

heads turned to watch the small white dog

no longer breathe

for a young female singer

who is married to the band's drummer.

time passed like gas escaping the earth's gravity,

and nebula were formed.

colors coalesced.

black holes seemed beyond wholly.

school was in session.

the kids played at being Buddhist monks in the

back bedroom with lava lamps and incense,

sniffing silence for deeper wisdom.

the room filled with smoke.

they listened to the Beatles,

a group of Liverpool laddies

who played in the underground Cavern Club,

wanting to hold hands in the street.

heaven was a passing thought.

hell was like thick molasses underfoot,

which couldn't be avoided.

the devil played his sweet music all summer long.

he went down to Georgia and beyond,

his barbed tail striking everywhere.

one poor soul who was struck 

remained on Front Street during an especially heavy rain;

he watched the devil overflowing the railroad tracks,

and the subsequent flooding reached the second floor 

of a long row of inexpensive homes.

a few cars were swept away, and all the heating coal in open sheds

turned brown, like soft lumps of mud.

the surging water pushed rescue canoes in thru open windows,

past flowered wallpaper which began to wilt.

a squid swam upstream thinking 

of joining the American navy,

wearing a lone tattoo about his Mother, whose name was Laura.

he imagined bar brawls and military police dressed

like Keystone Cops wearing helmets,

looking for heads to bash in.

one shot glasses of whiskey were cheap like red paper poppies.

he sailed sober from the west coast, looking for adventure

on the famous sloop John B,

close to a sandy beach where the surfer boys played.

around Sausalito, he boarded a hippie bus

painted like a houseboat in swirling psychedelic patterns.

he rambled, coughing

across the country with a driver who remained hatless.

his grin was filled with home-grown marijuana buds.

he never used a map for directions.

he stayed high on the low coastal plains,

while the surrounding hills beamed a welcoming invitation.

the edgy cities seemed shot full of heroin and a lively art scene,

but money was hard to find, like good luck.

the bus stopped briefly for an intersection, exercising caution

by looking both ways, present and future.

they found beat poets who published and read lines in a city lights book store,

where some manuscripts grew hundreds of feet long,

like a simple bouquet of white wild flowers beneath an alter.

when they found me, I was walking my old possum;

my face grew into a beatific smile,

imagining a blow job when the weather improved.

i smiled for more than 90 years, with lines on my cheeks

brushed in the shape of a Van Gogh sunflower. 

all day and all of the night two calico cats sat by my juke box,

from where they studiously watched, smiling with jazzy feline teeth.

for 5 cents, i played Elvis,

sipping my warm cherry Cola, like champagne,

imagining a transexual named Lola squeezing me.

sometimes i played Tommy Dorsey or Marlene Dietrich,

and their music put needles on my spine, tingling my forearms. 

the calico cats learned to sing the rock classics,

and play electric guitar,

but they never became international opera stars,

although they once had a Broadway show named for them,

said T.S. Eliot, a close friend of mine,

sitting at my table for a drink.