By Douglas Evan Weiss
Guitars and bazas my dreams look like you. Feral. With style. A complete city block. All my wasted time off key to a variety of tempos, foot stomping and unaware of economy or children or home equity or progress rolling down hill with hammers and thunder. The heavy machinery is coming soon. The cranes and dozers and dynamite.
Dozers and dynamite.
Dozers and dynamite as prologue to a long song for you. Slowed by manoghomy and astrophysics; punched in the face and spun around and bent over and brave enough to invite sailors home and whisper lies to lovers and eat pizza with strangers and arrive naive for waves and sand and destiny and marvelous neighbors whom are imperfect but now represent forever.
Bazzas on a clear day at Scarr Reaf fast down the line holding a guitar and unrecognizable from this angle. There must be something wrong. Tearing at stone and concrete to make a statement about taxes and government authority and geographical providence – this is power, you say. This is how you eat well and sleep deeply and expect applause. This is the penthouse, the golden escalator, the black stretch limo and the pricey smoothie; this is good food at the airport, private check in, helicopters out of downtown Manhattan, facial brand recognition, air conditioned villas on the cliff, bad breath and cigarette smoke, small rooms with a fan and paperwork, budget allocation and Russian hookers; this is my kind of town, southern France, Ibiza, networking from a yacht, drones above Positano, honeymoons in Venice, short stories conceived on the Bukit, children born to teenage mothers out of wedlock; this is the new fancy cruising down Fifth with a baseball bat and a signed document. Kelly is crying. These are actual peoples lives we are fucking with.
Cool is dead. The convertible is dead. The drop top is dead. The beach is rubble. There are continuous heartbreaks and small talk yet everybody knows. You keep fucking around and someone gets shot. This whole town is dead.
Anniversaries and open casket warning shots; the inactivity and acid rain is harmful. What ever happened to acid rain? You ask. Old, unc, pervert, monochromatic and fancy, walked by The Ritz but we did not go inside. Infatuated with Place de Vendome is the sole memory, but did not touch it, did not approach. Scared. Always scared. Open squares and cobblestone stages make for soft landings. We sit on the steps at Monmarte. So far from bazzas. So far from jungle pinches and Asian butterflies. The smells are different. The faces are slim and serious, with books and coffee and ideas. The pebbles along the garden walkways thicker than grains of sand. High heels and ambitious. Looking around nervous. Walking next to him anxious. Do not fuck up. No telephones or safety nets. In the cafes writing postcards – this is you showing me what is important in life.
My phone number is nothing and my password is zero. Bazzas at dawn just the flowers watching. Bazzas with holy strangers born from troubles and arriving with nothing. Brazzas as family with rusty strings and strange rhythm. Pick up trucks and rain approaches. Bazzas at dawn sauntering down the stairs telling stories with nostalgia and whimsy. Permission to kiss and touch and care and envy; holding hands with my new love same as the old love walking past cotton fields and construction sights discussing the weather and who takes the kids to school. My love in a fortress with cannons and spikes. Everyday we try to kill each other.
Dozers and dynamite as a song for you screamed from the second floor in Rome where the destruction starts. A parade of nymphs dressed in red guarantees trouble, with candles and letter openers. Here come the police and the young men with hammers. It’s always young men with hammers……. Always the young men with hammers. Let’s be heartbroken but not surprised. Today it might rain. Tomorrow an earthquake. Later a suntan. A fine Sunday to bury a past and pay taxes. If possible they will take it from you. Dozers and dynamite for two, a quiet table in the back, away from the kitchen. Bazzas and lunatics get a late reservation. Raise a glass, we toast the death of priceless. For the final time never again. But then the hammers dutifully swing.
