Denver Life, Part Three, Chapter Two

A friend gave me the book On The Road to read while I was living in my truck and driving without a purpose across the country back in 2005. Kerouac's words were an amazing inspiration and his beatnik spirit, still very alive within those pages, was a muse that still resonates within me even today. When I arrived in Denver, a place he and his friends spend a large portion of their time, I was moved to write this...

Denver is the middle ground,

that place we eventually turn to,

those long road travelers and I,

the place we eventually come back to,

having never been before.

All our spirits are here,

waiting for us,

protected from the great deserts by our Fathers,

the looming Mountains,

the guardians of the city

     they've no doubt been called by better poets than I.

We've all died here,

like paradise under the sad lights

     of a sandlot softball game,

with all humanity watching,

with Dean's ghost floating on Colfax,

floating ever onward,

a journey with no return.

Denver has held us all,

and I,
hardly noticing it,

on the edge of that embrace,

dared to tap into her sadness

     like so many before me.

I am a lonesome patriarch

of Middle America,

and all I do is die.

In the Denver nights,

it's what they all did,

Babe,
Ray,
Tim,
Betty,
Roland,

Dean,
Sal,
Carlo,
Ed,
Roy
and Tommy.

In God's name and under the stars,

what for?

3.17.05