a Bohemian in Suburbia
written during many long nites/mornings in 1992-93.storyline added in 1996. published to the internet in 1999.

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The first glints of the rising sun streamed thru the library windows.He heard the morning sounds of birds chirping as they awoke.As he popped open another can of beer,he wondered what they might be saying to each other.He recalled other mornings,as the sun rose over the deck,when she had popped open new beers and wondered what the birds may be saying to each other,but she wasn't here now,and he had spent another long nite pounding out poetry and other wild ramblings on the computer keys. He originally had started to write the story of his life,but as time and long nites wore on,they had turned into more of a continuous series of late nite musings.He thought of turning the whole thing into a book.He already had the title:"a Bohemian in Suburbia".He thought that it fit him well.He liked the sound of it on the nite that he had written these words...
'tonite a thought entered my mind. i cannot shake it. i wrote it down...a bohemian in suburbia...it sounds so intense! like a book title, or a poem. it sounds as tho it has already been used and i just recall hearing it from somewhere(Dylan,maybe?). i came home from work. i showered and had all good intentions of sitting down to some beers and a movie (i did-Schlitz lite;Ford Fairlane-both entertained me). however, prior to that i donned my BLACK beret, my long, BLACK dress coat, grey military style pants, and, of course, a standard BLACK pocket 'Tee', and suddenly, these words came to my mind-A BOHEMIAN IN SUBURBIA. that is ,after all, what i am. the lifestyle that i lead is definetly more bohemian than suburban,but suburban is where i live. what a COOL word, when you think of it,-SUBurban, sorta counter-culture,actually. this town is definetly not urban, but where i live is actually SUBURBAN, away from the center of town, but not on it's own. a neighborhood, each of us seperate, yet somehow united in our own way and i am the Bohemian in this Suburb. i'm sure there are others who feel just this way. and now, a poem...
Alone.it's nite
the time is rite
alone i sit
i think
i ramble,i wander
i walk the alleys,secure the box that brings only death.
but gradual death.it is not felt
till cough and stench alone reveal the awful truth
i live ,alone. a wanderer,a midnite spirit who walks the alleys of this town
i drink. i feel the spirits come upon me and i wish,but...
wishes are mere dreams and i am but a gypsy who has sprouted roots,these roots are in Suburbia,a town that in i dwell. But, do I live here or just abide and take up time and space?do I but live among the suburbanites and still remain a soul whose sprit cannot quite equate his being with those who live within a sphere which circles only closely to a space which in I dwell?
I dwell in tides and moon spaces-eternal,elemental phases.I am,after all,the man who time has called upon to deliver lines such as these to those who must live in equalibrium and cannot consider things that are not as they are told. I come to answer rhymes of old,the Cosmos,the Zodiac...pagan thoughts and things that man has pondered over years.a Stonehenge,Zion,Godman,I-to quote universal thoughts and try to end man's constant quest for knowledge.Knowledge is but a curse and curses are but a means to an end.the end but a beginning and I am but a catalyst for these things.If you do not know the questions,then how can you know the answers?So is this the Bohemian? this man who in a godlike state dwells? this soul who feels his life is so far from those with whom he resides?is this the man,or ghost,or spirit?'
At times he considered himself mad as he rambled on like this,at all hours of the morning,smoking cigarettes and drinking beer and thinking of the gypsy lady from his past.His thoughts kept going back to her...late nites on the deck that they had spent so many of.He would see her standing at the factory door,waiting for him to get off of work,like she used to do.He couldn't help himself.She was like no woman he had ever known.She was a gypsy,that's why she wasn't here now.She was a witchy woman,an Earth mother,a child of the moon.She was beautiful and sexy.She had eyes that shone like no others and a walk that he could describe only as a flow.But she was gone now and he was alone ,except for his two young daughters,who were asleep upstairs and soon would be rising and getting ready for school.He took another sip of beer and thought that he had better lay off of it now,because he had to get back into his daily routine.He was,after all,a suburbanite.He had a house,and a job to pay for it,and the girls would need a ride to school.He lit another cigarette."I smoke too much",he thought.He drank too much,too and he knew that it was starting to affect him adversely.He had written about it in his ramblings.Where was that ,now?He searched one disc after another until he found it.He took a long drag on his smoke and another gulp of beer, as he read...
'this past week has shown that this overtime schedule is catching up to me.late for work two days becuz I overslept! my points are low.today I got a verbal warning.I'm afraid that I mite be losing a grip on this alcohol thing.I mean,I've known that I am an alcoholic ever since my last acid trip back in '77.remember how I declared it to most of Arentville early that morning? but I always felt that I understood and had a grip and didn't let it fuck with my existence.lately it has been.I keep drinking all morning long and then pass out and don't get up on time.I've got to correct this.I know I can.I know I can.just gotta tell myself that.'
He didn't want to dwell on those thoughts, however, becuz he had to get himself together for the day.He finished the beer and reread what he had written the nite before...
'that's rite!fivefuckin'thirty A.M.I've been workin' twelve hour days this week becuz the nite guy is off.I get home around three-thirty and can't sleep,just like regular hours.so I stay up,drinkin' beer and smokin' deathsticks and doin' stuff that needs to be done or just stuff I wanta do.I should be doin' dishes rite now.both sinks are full.that's not unusual.Christ!last mornin' I came home and stayed up until I got the girls off to school and then slept some till work time.looks like the same scenario is happenin' today.sorta like bein' a third shift dude,I quess.I wonder about me sometimes.why do I live the way that I do?Damn,I've gotta do groceries and all that and I'm gonna be buzzed and spaced and still go do twelve hours tonite and twelve more on Saturday and eight on Sunday and then start another week.Man! Jack is getting to be a dull boy!I need to get out and about but I just don't see that happenin' with the work schedule that is currently in effect."when you have the time,you don't have the money and when you have the money,you don't have the time.""dope will get you thru times of no money better than money will get you thru times of no dope."OH,I don't do dope anymore.oh well,it's still a cool saying.I quess I could insert BEER instead of dope.I sure do go thru enuf of that!"I drink alone."it gets boring? lonely?something,sometimes,but,"the beer life ain't no good life,but it's my life."I just made that up.thanks Waymore.speaking of Waylon,I've been wanting to write down some lyrics to a song that I used to have on eight-track by Jessi Colter (I gave all my eight-tracks to Wes this year,remember?)was it written about me? I've always thought so.it goes like this...
BLACK-HAIRED BOY
He's a black-haired boy of some CONFUSION
He makes no excuses for the things he uses
Gentle and Wild,he's a child of the mountains
His words are for sayin'
His days are for countin'
He's lookin' for a home that he's afraid he'll find...
He's a devil in the mornin';a saviour at nite
tommorrow's a case of WHATEVER'S RITE
Lonesome and high on the things that he feels
The cards that he plays are the cards that he deals
he's one of the chances yr entitled to take
one of the hearts it's too late to break
I've seen him beside him and I never knew why
I've seen him fall down to laugh, stand up to cry


that's me,even tho I wasn't born in the mountains.remember that time I climbed to the top of Pole Steeple and got off?I was a child of the mountains then.that's exactly what I needed that day.that was a good day.my kids and Magic,and she understood.I miss Magic the way it was then.I wish that I could have a little of that now, but one cannot live in the past.I'm done for tonite,I'll see ya later.'
Yes,that definitely was the way his life was going,he thought and then moved upstairs to begin his day.The kids got to school,he made it thru another night of work and sat down at his keyboard and feeling extremely inspired,wrote the following...
fuck this shit,man.I am a poet and I'm wasting my time on useless thoughts."it's time to seek some therapy,time to write a poem."thank you Jimmy.do I feel inspired for poetry?do I need a reason?maybe it's the season.last quarter.we all know by now that it's the elements that rule our lives.so,perhaps,a moon poem...Restless,feeling so alone,feelings thrill me to the bone,mind is traveling,always does,quess becuz I got a buzz.so what is this thing we call getting high on alcohol?a way of life I know some say,way to cope from day to day,one day at a time,that's how I do,and now it's time for another brew.GOOD ONE,DUDE.catch ya later.
He was not a religious man,although he was raised with it.A good Lutheran boy,he had gone off with his mother to chursh every Sunday and believed intensely in the Father,Son and Holy Ghost until his late teens,when he began to question his parents' beliefs.Those were times of quite alot of questioning of the way things were.Society was going through many changes and many new thoughts and beliefs were being thrown at him..."Imagine no religion,no hell below us,above us only sky."He began to question the existence of a creator.Did not all religions have a basic belief in some sort of supreme being?Perhaps man had created God in his own image,not vice-versa.Was religion merely a way of easing the psyche,much like the drugs that were flowing freely and that he had begun to experiment with?Perhaps because of the drugs and his eventual entrance into a wild and free lifestyle,he gave up his ponderings on religion and eventually gave up religion altogether.He spent his early twenties doping and drinking and stealing and living the life of a degenerate.He married during those days ,bought the house in the suburbs and tried to settle down and live the American Dream.The marriage ended in divorce and he was left with the house, the kids and his bohemian ideals.He began to read alot more then and developed an interest in religion once again.He tried to put together his ideas on the subject.He flirted with Protestantism once again and even let a zealous missionary talk him into joining the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints.He quickly realized that this religion was too cult-like and resorted once again to his books and his musings.Late one night,he put down these words on the subject...
I haven't talked about my beliefs for sometime.I will now.I have gone back to being the agnostic.Science seems to make more sense than religion.I feel that man has created his dieties.I know that somewhere I have said this before.I remember discussing this with Magic when she was explaining her beliefs.but,Man felt Evil in him,so he decided there must be some outside force causing these feelings,so he created a Satan.all thru the ages,man has felt that there must be some other force than themselves governing thier lives,so they created gods.
There have been many culyures,many societies,an da all of them have had tier own set of dieties.every one has had the good guy and the bad guy.some have had the rulers of the kingdom of the dead and these were not evil.many have had the son oif the ruling god die and come back to life in order to save the general public. the Bible tells the story of a Jewish family and thier geneology and the stories that that family passed down from generation to generation.Science has proven some of the things that they claimed,such as the flood,but these things took place in the world as they knew it.I feel that there were other groups of people, living in other areas,that were not affected by the things that befell the people who were living in the Middle East. these people did not leave an account of thier lives as the family of Abraham did.I am sure that there is much more to the history of the world past than we have been given knowledge of,simply becuz these people did not keep account of tier history the way the ancestors of Jesus of Nazareth did.these days i am not into those biblical things.the most sold book in the world.I think that it is a history of the Jewish people.I am sure that Jesus was a real person,but as far as for his divinity,I don't know.Man has always,all thru history,come up with Dieties in order to ensure that there is a Force stronger than himself.an entity that is in control of things,someone who is controlling our destinies.however,are we not just dreaming of a better life than the one that we live?Man has within him the elements of good and evil.these desires,these strong urges,and we feel that there must be something that is causing this,so we create a diety in order to explain it.in the Christian belief these elements are called God and Satan.there are countless stories to explain the relationship which these entities play within our lives,but these stories are so much like every other society that has gone before us.this Jesus thing has lasted for almost 2000 years now,longer than most other diety beliefs,but the elements of the story are all the same as what people have believed before his coming.a Father figure,a son who dies and then conquers death.we all hope that we can conquer Death,but death is inevitable and basically,that is why there is religion.the hope that man can conquer Death.all the religious beliefs that are recorded all thru history have to do with the conquering of death.
Nature is actually the ruler of our lives.ancient peoples worshipped Nature and,in fact,that is the life force that we all feel.call me pagan,but that is wherein Truth lies.the Elements control our lives and we merely give them substanence in our own likeness.early man felt the influence of the moon,the sun,the planets,the wind,the rain and they gave these things embodiment."these things must be controlled by something like me" they thought,so they created dieties to control these things,but,in fact,these things control us.why do we refer to 'Mother Nature ' and' Father Time'?are these not embodiments of the rulers of our destinies that we refer to as our gods?we feel that there must be entities like us to control our existence.in actuality it is the very elements that control us.astrologers can probably explain this better than I,but,But-there is the word,but...astrologers called the birth of Jesus of Nazareth.he definitly was a man who had a message for mankind-Peace and Love-treat yr brother as yrself,but as for the resurrection,that same scenario was played before in ancient writings.check it out,all thru history man has been believing in the death and resurrection of some form of diety. this represents the death that Autumn and Winter brings and the resurrection that Spring brings.all religions have been based on this simple fact.and so,the bottom line is,Man is Energy,Life is Energy,religion calls this energy-Soul.Death causes the release of this energy.where it gos,I cannot say as I have not experienced it as of yet.Ghosts and Angels are some answers that have been presented by others before me.I am sure that there are unwordly entities that I will not fully understand,but as for God and Satan, I feel that these are merely creations of Man ,to explain the things that are going on inside of his own pyshe.if i am wrong,i will go to Hell.if I am rite...hell is merely a creation of the Judeo-Christian belief.
I need to do more reading.I haven't finished Ritual to Romance yet.I've been grabbing the encyclopedias lately.now there is some interesting reading!I can't believe how those Crusades came about!I mean,talk about yr religious fanaticism! and I thought Pat Robertson was obsessed.Hey,I enjoy listening to what he has to say,but at least those knights weren't doing it for the bucks,or were they?I'm sure that alotta spoilage came back from the "Holy Land.but to spend years of waging war on the Mideast because they didn't believe that Jesus Christ was the one ,true way,wait a minute,aren't Christians still waging war in the Mideast today? and doesn't it have something to do withmoney?I mean,oil.I mean.what do i mean?what do i feel?what do i believe?I sure would like to know more about the relationship that Muslim and Judea-Christian have had down thru the ages.this,to me,is a very interesting topic.I have read fact and fiction that deals with the subject,Tom Robbins comes to mind,and I am still left wondering where all these notions fit together. and then there is Paganism and how it fit in with the Roman's beliefs,both before and after Christianity became the belief of the Romans.we are talking about major cultures here.cultures who believed one thing and then embraced another,changed it to thier way of doing things and then passed it down thru the ages,only to be destroyed by people who had very different concepts.
I was raised in a very rural,Protestant-Catholic area.I have very little idea of how things transpired in the days when people worshipped many gods and then came to worship only one.what a time those must have been!joseph Smith sat and wondered about the differences in Protestant beliefs,but did he wonder about the beliefs of people long before the sons of Abraham walked this Earth? I do.
I am going to bed now.catchya later.
But as he lay in bed,he could not sleep.His thoughts kept going back to the gypsy lady,the one he called 'Magic'.He had met her a year or two ago and they had clicked instantly.It was like she was the woman he was destined to meet.They had run together,drank together,made fabulous love together,talked for hours and hours on end,even lived together for a short time,but they were not ready to express a total committment to each other and they had parted.And his thoughts kept going back to her.In his restless mind,he recalled thier first meeting...
one nite,I walked into the bar alone,saw this chick dancing by herself,just sorta getting into the music-I said,"I'm gonna go dance with her." I did.that is when Magic entered my life.
Still thinking of her,he staggered back to his computer and composed this poem...
it was a long summer
it was a good time
.I didn't have time to write
I didn't find words to rhyme
but Autumn is on us now
and I hope that somewhere,somehow
I can find the words to express
my meloncholy and distress
the feelings that escape my mind
I know will come back in time
how can I say thoughts I don't know
as yhe winter comes on us
with thoughts of snow
and thoughts of Love
and thoughts of things that were once and shall be again
there was a beginning
I hope for no end.
so there is my November poem.perhaps some Magic will come as the seasons and the Moon change.I hope so.I need that.
And he drifted off to sleep.
For the next few months,he ran on the same routine.Twelve hour days in the factory,late nights in the library,typing on his computer.The things he wrote were full of distress,as was the Bohemian...
I've got to be at work at seven this morning.I hate these hours,but I can't complain about the overtime and the way my company is doing in these troubled economic times.I'm listening to old Dylan and just read some of "Songs of the Doomed",by Dr.Thompson,and I feel like I should write something.
I feel like two people,a schizophrenic I am,I suppose.to the general public,I am this good father and dude who keeps it all together.to me,I am this confused poet,this out-of-control individual,who may just lose it at any time.it pisses me off that I lost those poems I composed and tried to save last year.they were on the disc that I fucked-up along with my reflections on what my children would say about me when they are grown,but I digress.that is all lost.today is today and what I say now is where I am at."ohh,wee,ride me high",I love that song.it is a shame that Dylan feels he can sing so fucked-up and still keep his audience these days,but ,you know,I still look for every TV appearance and buy his CDs.he is still a poet laureate for all generations.I don't know what exactly that means,but I sure like to listen to the man.CD is over.I am going to put in "Desire",one of his best.it brings back old memories.the Seventies-boy,I miss them!I miss the days of desperados...waiting.we once were deperados-wild young men with brains afire and things we did were relentless,impractical,unknown,and unquestioned-we just did them.
and now,I sit and wonder whatever happened to those young men.where are they now?Butch is dead.Bear has not been heard from.Kennie and Lester-in Lousiana still?Kuhnie,Terry and I are still around,working and maintaining ,but not hanging together.Tom took off,Steves still cool but troubled.Curt,still cool,still working,I should see him more.Doug?like always.Terry Lee,I wish I knew.I can but imagine.Spahrski?-last I heard,wasted beyond belief.what about Grinder?Lep?i know where Joe is,I should stop in to see him.remember that meeting with Barbwire and Leftie this summer?Phil!I forgot Phil!I know where he is,I must contact him.Oh,the days and times we had!
the late of nite brings on memories
and wonderings
amI coming
or going
i must be going
becuz I don't see anything that says
I am coming
I wish I was
I wish I knew
I don't know
and now
I endcan I say what was?
do I know what is?
do I know what was?
where is the answer>
where is the past?
where is the answer
when auld lang syne gets lost
and thoughts and things in life get tossed
and you cannot remember when
and you wish you could find a friend
and friends are gone
and people strange?
it makes you wish you could rearrange
the way things are and how they turned out.
unfortunatly,that's not what life is about.
O.K.,here we go again.God,it's gonna be a ruff day at work,but ,you know,I actually enjoy what I do.I am,after all,a'working class hero',just like I wanted to be back in 1972.some hero! but I quess that I am.I maintain a home for my two children,I pay my billson time,and,my attendance problem aside,I do my job rather well.
of course,I wish that I could be someone or something different,don' we all?I wish sometimes that I had gone on to college and become some kind of journalist.even then I would have to put up with the same kinda bullshit from the bosses.from what I understand,that is the way it is no matter what type of job one has.there are those who say"this is the wayit should be",and those who have to do it that way.that goes so much against what I tried to develop as my personal feeling and lifestyle ,but-god,I say BUT alot,but that is the way life isnothing but alot of BUTS-and BUTTHEADS and fuck,nevermind.I hate the way that life is.Dylan is singing"One More Cup of Coffee" and that reminds me that I have not made any coffee to come on in the morn(it IS morn),so I must go do that.Oh Ho!there was at least one cup waiting to be warmed up,so I'll let that rest.now Zimmerman is singing"Oh Sister" and I have this strong desire to call my sister,but she may not appreciate a call at 2 a.m. and I really should get some sleep...S
Whoa!some quite intense thoughts on my previous nite of writing.I woke up that morn,sun shining in the windows and my head lying on the table beside my keyboard,still trying to come up with what that last 'S' wa s to say.I can't say now what was on my mind then,so I'll try to say what's on my mind now.I've settled my weekly bill commitment and have turned on MTV. smoking a deathstick here in the house,unusual,I take them outside most of the time.need to lite some insence.running low on that.running low on lots of things these days but still surviving-I am,after all,a survivor.if I weren't,I would have climbed that fence and grabbed those Met-Ed high tension lines by now.but I haven't.I'm so proud of me.I was in the bathroom awhile ago,touching up my hairdo.a month or so ago,I went to the bathroom one nite and got rid of most of my long hair.I used my beard trimmers and scissors and over about 24 hours ,I had a new hairdo that my friend,Byron,calls 'very '90's'.very short up top and on the sides and a very long tail in the back.i have learned to braid my tail by myself.i can do everything by myself.unfortunately,there are some things that are much better with another person,but I am,after all,THE LONER.oh,yes,I painted my unenvironmentally-sound Hornet with a large peace sign with litningbolts on the driver's door,a large bloodshot eye on the hood,elemental symbols on the passenger door and a large yin-yang on the trunklid.then I painted the bottoms of my feet black and walked all over it and finished with several hand prints.my last stick of incense,fortunately,not my last can of beer,I wish I could get back into that Bohemian in Suburbia state-of-mind,but it seems as tho I am just recording the recent goings-on,like a journal,this is ,after all,a journal.
my oldest daughter turned 11 yesterday.I got her a Barbie with floor-length hair(totally hair) and a Troll.it's funny that Trolls are popular again.she got her first Troll several years ago when I was getting shit from my childhood from my parents' house.
there has been so much shit going on these days!I have been trying to be more political,like I was a long time ago.I never have been as involved as I would like to be.just standing on the sidelines,looking in.so i thought I would vote in the primaries to get Jerry Brown on the ticket,but I found out that since I am non-partisan,I can't help decide who gets on the ticket!I am not a party person.well,yes I am,but not a political party person.so I cannot give a voice on who gets on the party ticket. anyway,Rodney King-the cops can now do what the fuck they want to-I quess nothing has changed-go ahead,yank me from my car and beat the shit outta me-you are the man so you can do what you wanta.I hate the way things are going in the '90's.I was watching C-span the other day and all these people were being so radical,so outspoken-i hope that this is the way things are headed,like people standing up to the military-industrial complex like they did in the '60's.even congressmen were saying"hey,Bush,this is what we want".
it is 3a.m. and I am beginning to feel as tho the poet in me is dead after reading over what I just wrote,so I must find a wild strain here,I mean,after all,the Black Crowes are singing on the TV.Oh shit,this Clapton song again-whatever happened to"get up and get yr man a bottle of red wine"?this isn't then-I just killed an ant walking across my computer table...dead ant...dead ant...dead ant,dead ant,dead ant,dead ant.so there is my poetry,condensed to simple,stupid jokes.
GOOD NITE
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