Poetry Friday, The Galilee Hitch-Hiker, Part 5

The Hour of Eternity

"The Chinese
read the time
in the eyes
of cats,"
said Baudelaire
and went into
a jewelry store
on Market Street.
He came out
a few moments
later carrying
a twenty-one
jewel Siamese
cat that he
wore on the
end of a
golden chain.

I wrote a poem once featuring, in one line, alley cats spitting diamonds. Jewels and cats. I wonder if I was channeling Brautigan.

Just before I woke up this morning, I had a dream that I was having hashbrowns and doing cocaine with Dennis Hopper. Swear to god. Is that not a Brautigan line? I am dreaming in Brautiganese.

I wish I could stay in this dreamy poetic place, even (especially?) if I am all jacked up on dream coke. I am already feeling the pull of the semester's stress. I want to feel the excitement. I am happy about my classes, my students, my (impossible and tantalizing) research projects. But then there are the frustrations, mostly generating from The Toxic One--a whirlwind of audacious stupidity into which I have a hard time not being sucked. I did a really really good job of resisting its tug last semester. Must stay that path.

And until Monday? I am going to hang out with alley cats and iconoclasts and cokeheads.