(Donkeyland, the Cayuga Street Gang,
of the 50s & 60s) in Poetic Prose
1
Third Person
Narration
Misfortune?
Fortuity, luck, chance: a gang—twenty or thirty kids—, twenty five, no fifty
years later legend would begin to affirm, and still be there to affirm it, that
Donkeyland, the Cayuga Street gang where the hooligans that came out of the
gang before them, the Mississippi Rats themselves; anyway, since the
circumstances, it was the only method to breakout in the city neighborhood, now
of course left behind like a pong, a scent, a kind of huge bizarre spirit—at
one time perhaps even humorous and terrifying,
they were as if the settlement of the North End side of the city. Jackson Street, off Sycamore Street all the
way down along the Old Oakland cemetery’s iron fence—that dates back to the
late 1850s, the oldest cemetery in St. Paul—to its very end, by what was once
called “The Dew Drop In”, or the street called Maryland. Now Cayuga Street,
fallen, blundered into the notice or choice of a lazy and lost whimsical saint.
Desolate, isolated, almost seemingly impossible to have dreamt, since those
long lost days of the Mississippi Rats, and even the last gang, the Cayuga
Street gang, ruffians, now dead or scattered by this time, and replaced with
robbers, and some other dysfunctional gang, dreamt, —if the neighborhood, which
really is no longer a neighborhood would never exist, needed or felt it needed to
belong to anything else, other than itself: at which this time it was a knitted
brotherhood (like one for all and all for one), more than the simple corner
street fraternity of a forcible size group, but a society, within a society.
Many of the gang members were captured by
chance, by an incidental band of police more-or-less, police patrolling in
ghost cars whom were brought into Donkeyland because it was the one place in
St. Paul, Minnesota, in the late 50s and early 60s and mid-60s, and early 70s, where
more cars were stolen than in any other place in the city, for play and
destruction. Being part of a general overall delayed: Forth of-July like fest,
with cars racing up and down Cayuga Street, which by the second and third day,
and second and third week of having that stolen machine on wheels, by way of
elimination, into drunken brawling and driving, even the best of hardiest cars
became vulnerable enough to be called junk, from the Donkeyland society, Cayuga
Street gang, a street with a reputation. That’s how it was back then,
residents, calling the police, getting tired of calling the police, captured in
a comatose of trying to evict the swamp of a mile long neighborhood kids, from
Sycamore Street to Maryland Street, and its main arena the turnaround alongside
Cayuga street, by the house at 186 Cayuga Street, were an old Russian lived, known
as the turnaround, where they made camp
to regain their strength or at least to meet, and where they might fest for the
night’s hour or two or three, like bandits, but were not bandits, as if having
a hideout from the police—an open air hideout: where they could abuse and
tease the police as they drove by, let them chance them, get out of their cars
and work for a living. And when chanced
run into the empty lot, by what was called Indian’s Hill: the gang stumbling up
the embankment, by where if they were not in the turnaround, were at the
campfire on top of Indian’s Hill, drunk and fighting, and wine soaked, and
nobody really in command. No Sergeant, recognized, no deserters from this
corps, no former followers of the Mississippi Rats, they were a decade before,
although some traded conversations with them.
Anyhow, the captors went to Redwing
Reformatory, some to St. Cloud Reformatory, some to boy’s town, some to
Woodview for detention, teenagers mostly, and remained prisoners for a week, a
month, a year, some two years. And later on some went to prisons, one died in a
prison, one got released, one got shot, and some got drafted into the Army,
into the Vietnam War. But most upon release came back seeking more drink,
womanizing and fighting and more scared, a few said that that was enough more
than enough, and left the two corner street bars, called Bram’s and Mt Airy,
whom were weaned their and most likely would have died there, from the cradle
to the grave you might say like so many had, and left town, the city, the
country.
Now in their teens and then in their twenties,
revenge for having been evicted from Donkeyland, they were the frontier
pioneers of the times for that Street, when rules and discipline were almost
centered on physical condition to endure fire or flood, fights and detention, and
no community or other street gang were invited in, nor were allowed to interfere
with anyone’s morals from that area, as long as you stayed within that perimeter
of Donkeyland you were safe, about midway with-in the city, naturally some
other gangs might have had ideas, but really did not want no part of this
underworld of donkeys, that were a reserved herd;
But all of St. Paul had some of it now, taken
as it were by astonishment, unexpectedly, without notice: their cars were burnt
from that very street, and the Federal seals on the trains were broken by the
gang for beer, and the junkyards were raided for their iron and steel and
copper and brass, and sold back to the neighboring junkyard for more beer and
wine and cigarettes. So in this way one can call them bandits, and were as I
said, put into those iron-clinking jails, and reformatories. Which some had no
lock like Redwing, none at all and these clients so far had been amateurs,
Cayuga Street brawlers and drunkards and runaways—kids, but amateurs all the
same, whom not even a single heavy wooden beam across the head would have done
any good, and thus, outside of the door on the corner, they simply jumped onto
a bus from Redwing, like Dillinger going to a movie and coming out of it to
face the police. Well, for the boys, the gang members, they got a day out of
boredom and were picked up in
Donkeyland, hiding under cars and who knows were, and some of the oldest names—the Lund’s, the Siluk’s, the Yankcavick’s, the
Lindeman’s, and Luneburg’s, and the Grain’s, and I could go on and on. Now long
gone, that was fifty-years ago now they are if indeed still living, and some
are, Ace is 75-years old, the big brawny taciturn looking bodyguard, dumber
than a chicken in its egg. And Larry, the puncher, in his early 70s, and the
guitar swinging drunk, Chick now 66, and Gunner, who perhaps took more cars on
a spin, cars that didn’t belong to him—now 69-years old—: more cars than Ford
puts out in a day; and a half dozen now maybe a dozen, more or less, guys and
gals are now dead! Those guys and gals we all knew among us, with cowhide skin,
wholly misinformed or could never be any preemptory voice for a nation, but had
the right to vote all the same, who came down this pathless, pathway in the
inner-city, in the 1950s to live them out into the 60s: blatantly, scandalously,
sneeringly, who in essence told the rest of the world, they could not even hold
water, that they were frail too touchy of little men, weighing less than an
ounce, thus, cold careless of what took place outside their Donkeyland, this
was the Cayuga Street Gang!..
Hence, here is where the remnants live, those
that never got away, still living, enclosed once and forevermore, by
civilization, where its very intactness, its presence, still will not let go of
that lock and key, prove its lack of need to be part of something, and the only
thing left is the gang. When they tore down all the houses on Cayuga Street, a
symbol of security for the city, it was a gesture that the lock was broken, but
some still had that die-hard allegiance without humiliation, respect without
flattery, dying in that one lone bar now, renamed, no longer Bram’s. No longer bandits, waiting until the
messenger of death comes; not that they would object, but by simple instinct, would
prefer it to be after a good long drunk. Which would probably be the first
suggestion sold to Death, if indeed Death asked “Are you ready?” And if Death
should say: “Too bad, let’s go!” They would contemplate without consulting with
one another, over the routine wooden bar.
Yes, it was a small and determined gang which
tried to seize life early on, and surrendered to their youth, and became
race-horses, for a most valuable piece of street called Cayuga, in a
neighborhood called by the police Donkeyland, who legend says: held the
ravishers at bay until they got too old,
because there was new names and faces also, in the neighborhood now,
faces so new they were to invent a new
era, more people, no loyalty, or honor,
which the old neighborhood had, no solidarity, perhaps we can call them bandits
recognized, not so much drunkards now but drug criminals. Prototypes of other drug related
neighborhoods. More like lynching gangs! Yes, the uproar died from the old gang,
and law-and-order took over rapid, and the comatose residents were no longer
comatose, but new! The old ones gone,
but the old ones at least felt safe in their homes, no longer is this possible!
The new ones are bloodless, darker, and axe-minded. Insurgents sprawled in various corners, trying
to kick away the old lock. Yes, it is gone!
·
· ·
It was gone,
the era passed, but it didn’t pass without old lady Stanley, who lived next
door to the Old Russian’s house witnessing it all, or almost all of it, the
era, the generation. So old was she, it
was hard for her to open the heavy door leading out onto her patio, when that
generation nearly ended, and she nearly ended with it, and she
was betrayed into believing those kids she saw grow up, six and seven and ten
and now fifteen and twenty, would turn into something more rational, but it
didn’t happen—not then anyhow, and it didn’t take anyone else long either to
see it was not going to happen, anytime soon.
Watching the kids at a dead run, start running and reappearing wherever,
from the police, usually running to the top of Indian’s Hill, from the patio
front screened in porch to the kitchen window in the back of her house, she saw
it all, all the dead running, and dead stopping. Engulfed in her house, watching Mouse, one of
the Lund boys, and Gunner racing up and down Cayuga Street, in their 1940,
Fords, as if it was a racetrack. A fragile wisp of a woman, ageless, thinned
haired, who looked too frail even to approach them,
let alone scold them, yet she did now and then, and not only them but their
parents when she got annoyed, and the kids jeering at her with their Rock and
Roll, Elvis songs, and proceeded to do whatever they were doing, a contempt for
possible despoilers, and Larry punching out the cops on top of Indian’s Hill,
and that was not all. It was not even an ultimatum, it was a decree in the
neighborhood, and the only safe persons that didn’t belong in the neighborhood
who were safe, were: the mail carriers, the milkman, the bread peddlers, and
one black man whom nobody knew where he lived but walked down Mississippi
Street, and met the Old Russian, whom would walk with him up Cayuga Street, and
because the old Russian’s grandchildren were gang members, the old Russian was
safe, and because the old Russian was safe so was the black man, and of course
Mrs. Stanley whose husband died in 1959, worked for the railroad for 40-years,
died at 66, missed nothing. Like a weightless pigeon, or fossil of a bird, not
a vulture or pigeon, put a sparrow, a hawk-sparrow if there is such a thing;
that was the only reason the Blackman was allowed to walk up the street without
hindrance. It was an Irish, Polish, Russian, German, Anglo-Saxon neighborhood,
cut out of fleeing madmen from the 1920s. And so the black man quietly removed
himself halfway up Cayuga street, from the entire house to house fenced in
roadside…to who knows where! Nor did they look for him: what for? He was with
the Old Russian, and the Old Russian had two grandchildren, and a few of the
gang members asked the grandchildren “Who the heck is that nigger?” and without
any real clue, kind of a sheepish rage, “Who cares! He’s a friend of my
grandfathers…!” It wasn’t really a question, but a statement. Well that made it alright too. Wild men, have wild
timeless tempers, and they all looked the other way on that homeless black man,
who had a home but no one knew where, cared,
nor were interested all that much, where he came from, and went to.
And
there were the girls, All right, damn it, we almost forgot them, but they
belonged to the gang, also. They never realized its seriousness, and married
one another, because who else would they marry? Everyone knew one another, and
thought perhaps humorous, and most everyone went to Washington High School, a
few to other schools nearby but that was the primary one, and that was on Rice
Street, on the other side of the Cemetery, Oakland Cemetery, where the Cayuga
Street thugs, in the hot summers jumped over the iron fence for a ghostly and
go-getting party with the spirits, both alcohol and whomever:
“Yes—I’ll marry you, and quick too,
before the price goes up!” was not far-off of the answer to the proposals of
marriage in the neighborhood.
It was like the men blew on their
foghorn and the women came: wore a cord around their necks that said: Sandy
belongs to Roger, and Nancy belongs to Sammy, and Jackie, well she had a few
she belonged to and Carol belong to Rockwater, and the other Carol belonged to
Mike, and Mouse belong to Jackie, but not sure if it was the other way around,
and Jennie belonged to Larry, and Chick belonged to nobody but everybody. And
everyone knew there was no limit to the fantastic rotation this group of girls
and guys could take, a bizarre twist at any corner of any night.
Nor did they rest in the afternoons, or
the next day, they’d play cards at Hino’s house, drink all day, and Nancy would
make her soup and half a dozen guys would eat, and a dozen children between the
two would eat, and Jerry would fall to sleep, take a two-hour siesta, and kick
out the guys, and they’d return when Jerry woke up, and everyone would look at
everyone else for “Who’ll pay for the next drunk?” It would be just like that,
day after day, month after month, and it got to be into the years. That meant,
Big Ace would probably pay one dollar, and Jerry Hino ten-dollars, and if Doug
was there, he’d have a half pint in his pocket and offer that up as his
sacrifice, and Chick would bring in a twelve pack of Hamm’s beer, and play the
guitar, some of Rick Nelson’s songs and Elvis’ songs and Johnny Cash’s songs.
And who didn’t put into the kitty, would be debtors for next week’s drunk. And
if there was no room in the Hino house, they’d go to the two corner bars, the
home away from home, and the cradle to the grave, den.
And then a train load of whiskey would
come in, and it would have federal seals on the doors, but it never even
mattered at what price they entered that caboose, they’d break it open, and carry the boxes the distance it took—some pretty heavy, in the middle of the night through rain snow
or slush, and nobody would ever notice it
and get fossilized that night
with it; they had indestructible bodies
back then; matter of fact, once they saw the signs on the cars they didn’t even
have to discuss it, it was like candy, and since they wanted nothing else out
of life, least of all, sobriety, they went for it like a worm on a hook. No one
was the official leader of these so called raids, but whoever was the
thirstiest would seemingly be the most tuned into where the boxcar was, he was
the ordained chief for the night.
And
of course old lady Stanley saw it all (of
cause she did), and what
she didn’t see, wasn’t hard to imagine. On the other side of her house was
another family of kids who belonged to the neighborhood, one imprisoned at St.
Cloud. And across the street was the old German, who had two sons, Roger and
Ronnie—Ronnie and Chick often went girl hunting in Ronnie’s 1960-Chevy, black
as midnight, on White Bear Avenue—and a
daughter. And she saw it all, Mrs. Stanley saw all the going and coming, she
was kind of in the center of things. And she lived to be ninety-three, born at
the birth of the 20th Century. She seemed to be invisible at times
but never flimsy in her eagle eyeing of what was going on. Frail and
child-size, she fed her squirrels and birds and tended to her garden, like her
husband did. And watched the defacement of the Street, its generation, pass as
if an act of Congress said, leave them be, they’re not worth the trouble. Jail them all or draft them all—more or less!
Yes, that’s exactly how it was too.
No.
Not a confession, or even for them confusion, rather a way of life, it was
simply a way of life, how it was established, or came about who’s to say. And
perhaps a hell of a difference, And Chick said one day, “What am I hanging
around for?” Thinking all the time he was supposed to have left long ago. “You
aint got anything to hang around here for, do Yaw? Go on to San Francisco!” And
he did. He wasn’t even speaking to anyone about it, he just up and did it, kind
of. In essence, He said: the hell with the Act of Congress, and unauthorized himself
to be removed, willful removed from the misuse of this neighborhood called
Donkeyland. Then he was gone. They all
thought he’d come back, but he knew better, if he did he’d just have to go
again. And I suppose they all knew that too. They realize now that they had no possible
means to discover what perhaps his brother, Gunner, was in his thinking back
then, but he was like a strong and tireless horse, complete, and dared not come
back for too long.
· · ·
The empty lot
in the summers, —the weeds and grass got as tall as tall cornstalks; old man
Brandt, who lived alongside the empty lot, cut some of the grass and weeds down
and got a few of the boys to do the rest, and thus, the gang had a place to
play ball, as if for once without alcohol, it was one adjoined breath within
the gang, and for a number of summers it was somewhat kept up. It wasn’t until
they finished the game, did they start the drinking. Perhaps it was the
catalyst, and sometimes everyone played the game fast to get it down with
quickly, not to finish it but to get it out of the way knowing there was a keg
of beer nearby—yes, get the game behind them, and so they’d obliterate the game
somehow—sabotage it, as if they had also known in that first hour, at the first
hour’s end, or near its end, it would be enough, and they all knew this from
the beginning. That empty lot, or field
whatever you want to call it which was really about four acres square, which
50-years later will have vanished, leaving nothing but a parking space for
cars, although there were seldom any cars to be seen in that dark asphalt,
parking lot, had changed to a park, but there
were no kids on Cayuga Street anymore, when that happened, in the 1980s, and
then it changed again in the 1990s, and at the turn of the new century, it
completely faded away to legend, short-lived, from the 70s onward. Had you asked the gang, or what is left of
the gang, today: back in the 50s and 60s, this was unforeseen; even Indian’s
Hill, and with its woods was turned into inevitable dust, who could have ever
prophase that? A whole hill demolished, trees and all. Where is it? Where did
they put it? Pointless to point it out to the 21st Century,
teenager, from over on Buffalo Street, or Granite Street, or Acker Street, all
streets surrounding Cayuga Street, it isn’t any place to be seen—
·
· ·
But on top of
that hill, Indian’s Hill, back in those far-off years, the decades of the 50s
and 60s, and early 70s, is where the devil sat, pondering, deliberating, and
told his cohorts, ‘Kill the body, and the head will die,’ and they all believed
him and he himself believed himself because it had always worked, it was taken
for granted, why would it be any other way, but everyone in Donkeyland, kept on
drinking with dead-bodies, —this neighborhood was different, and to the
surprise of old Nick—the neighborhood laughed back at him, saying: “Wrong
again!” Although it didn’t bother him any, his reputation preceded him. The
more I think about it, the gang knew one of the devil’s tricks—unconsciously
that is—boredom, which is really an affliction, and accounts for many disorders
and the gang was never bored. This of course was an irrecoverable loss for old
Satyr! Pride comes before destruction, and accordingly, he lost a few admirers
on this motif, of having his followers always thinking he’s right. But he won I
suppose with flattery and even detestation, that cripples the mind just as
well, and so, in capturing a few members for life, to sell their souls, Et
cetera… he who lives in the eternal afternoon, left Cayuga Street; no longer
inspired, no longer aroused by glimpses into its future because he perchance knew
it had no future, energetically ablaze with the work he and his imps, his
cohorts, his henchmen, had already done, creating a horde of alcoholics at such
young ages, and having half the neighborhood incarcerated at one time or
another, now smoking dope, and selling drugs, providing all the forms of human
obsession he could think of, this was his legacy for Donkeyland…
2
First Person Narration
Donkeyland, the Cayuga Street Gang
The side-road appeared, it was just there, I had
thought for sure the police had a few of us gang members
The dirt side-road fell farther off to the
north, by the railroad yard. We all scattered and hid
Behind cut banks, under cabooses, behind
trees, and I kept running, I was fast
One of the boys had stopped was stooped over
and throwing up his beer and whatever, he looked at me passing, smiling
Smiling as if he had a secret, with dynamite
eyes;
I never stopped until I got back into our
neighborhood, where everything was familiar; we had been close to Rice Street, a
distance away
From street to street. The boys returned slowly
And took up where they had left off, before
we had decided to abandon the dusty turnabout, and empty lot for a drinking
hole someone discovered near Rice Street, and that railroad yard—
Some of the boys were already sitting on the
Church steps, another drinking spot, off Jackson Street!
That summer was hot, with no wind, very high
temperatures
I remember the houses looked like heads of
trees of a forest many night in my drunken stupors.
The neighborhood was
south of Rice Street,
As if in a gorge, the center of it being more
of a triangle
Stretching out from Mississippi Street, right
to left, to each end of the graveyard, Old Oakland Cemetery
A glittering ocean of graves and mounds, and
weeds and tombstones,
Perhaps at one time a farm back before the
Civil War, back before Minnesota was a State, back before 1858…
“I think they’ll be coming searching the
neighborhood,” said one of the boys,” that one night.
And another boy said, “I wish they’d let us
be.”
We were a world, in a world without them.
Stork, a tall lad, his lameness gave him a
kind of older look, but he was as young as I, at that time sixteen, tall in
thin-faced, one day we stole horses at the University Farms, and rode one giant
house for an hour or so until some watchman yelled us out of there.
Don, had that long and seemingly arched nose,
like a Greek.
Doug, the dynamite man, he was five years
older than I, strong as a bull
He liked to light the fuse to things, you
know, make a show of it.
One night I hid under a car, and the police
found me, drunk as a skunk.
Another night I was too drunk to leave a case
of beer in the middle of the empty lot, and the police picked me up, put me in
detention for two weeks.
If the cops drove by and didn’t stop we
simple frowned at them without speaking, square to round shouldered, heavy to
light jawed—
“You’re all donkeys down here in Donkeyland,
that’s what we call you down at the station,” said Howie the Cop to us boys,
who always seemed to have a smile ready, or available.
When he spoke or answered, saying to us: “This
is Donkeyland” Doug or Larry or Roger would say, “You don’t say.”
Then usually his companion would say, “We
know you took the copper from the junkyard the other night, I’m warning you to
stay out of that area”·
And Doug would say “Oh, was I warned?”
And the cop’s face would flush back; and one
of us would say, not me, but one of us, “Go to hell.”
Howie would calm him down.
And then someone would tease Howie’s
companion by saying “If you’ve got a complaint take it to the county!”
Sometimes Howie’s companions would come
between him and us, we all liked Howie, and Howie would tell him to be quiet,
but he’d not do so, and Howie would just shake his head.
One night he found me hiding under a car,
Howie did, and his pal, and his pal wanted to take me down to jail, and Howie
said, “No, let’s just take him home, his mother, she’ll be worried, but I best
not see you out again tonight!”
And I’d nod my head, up and down.
With Howie we never felt persecuted; we’d all
tell him things no other cops knew.
His partners always seemed to have obstinate
eyes.
And when the neighborhood boys would tie one
of the newer boys from the neighborhood to the firebox, and pull the alarm to
watch from Indians Hill the fire trucks come to rescue him, sometimes even half
naked, a guest of the fire department, although I never took part in it, but
observed it from a distance, they’d all laugh, as the police ten minutes later
would raid the neighborhood.
Even burst into houses without warrants.
During my graduation year from Washington
High School, I missed 64-days because Sidney Moller, would come and find me
before I’d walk into those heavy school doors, and we’d go in his 1955-Dodge
and get drunk some place.
And Bill Kapuan, he and I’d get drunk in
someone’s garage, without them knowing, until caught, then we’d run like hell.
He and I played the guitar, did karate
together, were going to put together a band called “The Blue Dreamers,” but of
course we never did, he died young, as did Sidney.
Compacted into the little group, were a
number of St. Clare’s, Chippewa Indians, Jackie and Jennie and John and a few
other, I dated Jacky for a while, she was my age, light bronze skin, shorter
than taller, cute, I was perhaps fourteen or fifteen at the time.
They originated from Red Earth, Reservation,
and the family lived off Sycamore Street.
Tom, a big drunk, went with Trudy, a St.
Clare girl, the oldest I think of the clan.
And Jack, Tom’s brother whom I hung around
with, had a 88 Olds, and we zoomed around town together in it—he ended up going
to Vietnam like Bill and I did; I went out with this new gal from the
neighborhood for a month or so, she was Mexican, he ended up marrying her when
he got back from Nam.
And there was Don and his friends a decade
older than all of us, and he died of liver disease, he and his friends, would
sit by lamplight on the porch at night and drink themselves silly, looking down
Jackson street across the street from the Church Steps, were us boys would
drink our beer and wine and whatever, yelling at cars driving by.
Don and his pals would drink themselves so
pale white, so redeye, when you’d talked to them they couldn’t even move their
lips to answer, dried as a sucked in prune from the alcohol.
This was some of what I parted with when I
left the neighborhood
“Ah,” I told myself leaving, “not as easy as
you think. But good-bye, brothers, and for evermore!”
It was about time I left anyhow, we had moved
there in 1958, and now it was 1968, a decade—
And within that decade I had ventured already
to Omaha, and Seattle and Southern California, not for long periods but short,
with gang members, if you can call any of us members—
We were simply part of something, and now San
Francisco would prove to be different—from there a new perspective on life
would capture if not haunt me…
Perhaps more than any other trip, this would
be the catalyst to whom I’d become in later years!
I mean, it wasn’t abandonment, but so little
remained to do in Donkeyland, anyone could finish it!
So I nipped at the chance to go to see the
city by the bay, I’d meet a friend there, and stay with him for two weeks, then
be on my own!
And so I rolled up my trousers and caught a
train west.
And now at twenty-years old, I had time to
see what the world outside of Donkeyland was all about.
When I told them I was leaving, Reno said:
“That San Francisco, has a lot of
homosexuals, be careful don’t come back one!” He died in his 40s, in prison, a
drug addict.
“What?” Richard Z, said (he ended up in
prison for rape)
“What?” a number of other friends said.
But they knew and understood now, I wanted to
travel, as I said, I had already been to: Obama, and North and South Dakota and
Seattle under my belt, as well as Long Beach California—
I have always notice and missed Donkeyland,
those years I suppose and now I am trying to keep the legacy alive, if for any
reason, posterity sake.
Although it didn’t need any more of me in it!
But you the reader, you can understand why I
refrained from it, it was a matter of survival, and it was becoming my nemeses.
I would have lost virtue; I had no strength
or will to fight against it.
It was it, they. The Neighborhood.
Donkeyland was a provable lock onto my mind
and craving, I was a communal risk, to myself, and my future.
I remember the last time I was inside one of
those two bars, John St. Clair’s wife, told me “Chick, get out of here, you’re
sober, you’ll end up like all of us,” and I said “what about you!”
It was good advice, at her expense.
And she replied, “I can’t leave, I got John
and the kids, I’m caught!”
I reckon that’ll do for my part in this
narration—per near anyhow.
But I don’t want to leave you high and dry,
so I’ll do what poets do best, leave you with a poem:
Behold
Donkeyland!
Behold
her, our dear Donkeyland, where she stands
Beneath
the conquered times and sky,
The
sword and the trumpet out of her sheathed—
But
mercy in her eyes!
Behold
her, before her gates:
That
one Street and loyal neighborhood,
Fizzing
up over our edges ceaselessly,
Each
one that waits
Destined
to conclusive fates—
Angels
of death thunders in her!
No: 4507/8-3-2014 (Behold Donkeyland!)
“Requiem for a Gang” August 2 & 3, 2014/No:
4506
