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Day of the Dead

from Late Lights by Late Lights

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lyrics

Day of the Dead

I pull my drunk friend out from inside
a bush, and think he must be looking
for the Mexico he’s read about: a story
of The Beats, myth of newsprint photo
with ringleader Ginsberg looking insane,
neck roped in marigolds as he smiles
next to a burro, Kerouac to his
right and already sideways off clay
tumblers of shadow-cool mescal,
the pink bake of sun unseen above
them in San Miguel de Allende.
What else explains my friend’s
impersonation of Neal Cassady,
himself found dead not far from
here after a marathon of cards
and booze, the cold iron of westerly
tracks his final bed, dumb enough
to pass out and freeze to death high
up in the desert night. Dumb. So I
yank him hard and loose-lipped off
the cobblestone, stand him up in
this city echoing with wedding cake
churches and wide, empty plazas,
and slap his face hard. “Wake up,”
I tell him, and hail a green and white
taxi trundling by, throw him in the back
and hand the driver 50 pesos, an address.
“Gracias por todo,” I say, and shut
the door, thinking, one less gringo
to fill a jail cell tonight. I stand next
to a park fountain gurgling blood
red in reverence to Dia de los
Muertos; three tiny skulls made
of sugar sit on the ledge, forgotten,
or left in tribute. Tomorrow, my friend,
shy and hungover, will call with some
version of sorry, and I will say no
problem, though it is, and turn back
to an altar made of dried corn and
flower petals, a small, clear glass
of rum left for a friend recently
dead, another drinker, because
tradition dictates you leave loved
ones something they treasured in this
life, regardless. But I’m no hero. And
now, sitting on the edge of the fountain,
I see the same stars we all see, have always
seen, high and tangled in their indifference,
steely grains fastened to a sky that once held
Dean Moriarty outside Denver; lights Kerouac
believed strong enough to serve as halos.

credits

from Late Lights, released July 3, 2018

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burst & bloom records Maine

Burst & Bloom is a small, independent record label and book publisher based in Kittery and Bath, ME.

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