Bobby was a good guy, even before I started dating his sister. I eventually married her. She had my child. He went astray and rode all raucous into the foaming waves of self destruction that are as brown as the sewer wash of Nahant Beach and all of it’s whored out bathing beauties that demand roast beef sandwiches at the end of the night of their ‘ice’ beer consumption.

Andrea went to Umass for her Sophomore year that was my Freshman one. We did not know each other that year but her best friend, who was a Resident Assistant, knew me real well as I would cause mayhem and havoc on her floor of responsibility control. I wish I had known Andrea that year. She would not wanted to have known me. We never would have been together if that had occurred.

I met Bobby the Summer before my Sophomore year at University, which was his Freshman year. Are you following the twist of coincidence yet?

I also met, officially, his sister that Summer as well.

We all became fast friends as they waited on tables and I cooked in the kitchen. It was a Cape Ann five star seafood dining extravaganza called ‘The Peg Leg Restaurant’. We worked hard, served well, cooked better, and we all dropped many a saline drop of effort.

Bobby was a fresh faced, clean cut kid that I really thought to be a younger brother, even before the vows with his sister were exchanged. Robert, Bobert, Bobby was a true and good fellow.

He was as down on himself as any of us are. In his heart he swelled like the seas of galleon destruction.

Bobby and I would get cases of Lion’s Head beer which were 9.53 a case. They were long neck bottles of amber joy filled with pilsner and stood erect like soldiers in a brown board bar box that required a .35 cent deposit due to it’s sturdy structure. Massachusetts redemption is .05 cents a bottle. It made each beer cost about thirty cents. We drank them down thankfully, usually deciding how much LSD we would eat as we rolled joints and laughed a lot.

We liked the same music, we liked the same things.

We stopped hanging out so much when his sister and I started dating after that year of school together. Her and I went for a salty beach walk one night in April and fell in love.

Bobby is in rehab now for the fourth go around. Sometimes our heroes and intentions (along with attentions) lead us astray. I wish he was doing better. He was on the wagon for awhile and doing paralegal work.

He previously robbed his Dad on the Cape. He also tried to drive off a bridge ala Ted Kennedy. He lived, just like Teddy did.

He did the same thing a week ago.

He stole his Mother’s credit cards and was buying scripts online.

He is now trying to get better.

Some of us never do.

Some of us pick up the slack and fix it all.

Some of us never have to look at that dark brimstone face in the mirror and ask it the questions that we desperately need the answers to.

His sister lucked out. He did not.

I know well of both and both of them.

I will keep my head high like a number by Argent.

Keep writing and seek out grace.

Things have a way of working out …

Just another smippet of poems past.

Remember, you can read current work at reknowltoniii.blogspot.com/

More of it all soon enough ...

I have made the executive decision to ease back into the politics. With the short couple of days since the end of CWP, I have not injected a full syringe of reality into the medulla oblongata. There is so much to take in. Things are changing so quick and yet they remain so symmetric to the days leading up to the change. Sometimes the calm before the storm is filled with just as much tumult as the storm itself.

I love to write and wax the politics but the prose as sunk deep into my soul once again and has left me grinning like an eager whore ripping money from the Jon’s hand. I have to turn up the drum roll strut of some go-go and get on down the road but I will milk the prose writing for one more farm morning without the work.

Dylan dances in the mind and Frank keeps throwing him out. I have this image of Picasso’s ‘The Dream’ dancing in my head. All of it’s sultry crotch gripping, exposed breast, penis face, splendor staring at me from the hall. Such a prolific image of sex and loneliness and raw exposure to the needs and wants of the libido that camps out in all of our skulls. If Picasso were really in my living room, I wonder what he would drink and how long it would take him to get into my Lady’s pants.

I was just thumbing through a book of my poems for a little reading bonus later. All of my books have Intro and Outro pieces, as well as quotes from friends, books, and movies that are pertinent at the time that the book goes into service. I don’t use the books so much anymore. I use this box. This stare down of CRT that is taking it’s toll, at the very least, on my vision. I am trying to ween myself from the Google and get back to my mental exercise. Stretching the noodle out so far that you would never have to flick fling it against the wall to know if it was done. Everything is done at some point, even is we don’t think it is or we don’t want it to be.

Farewells are the best part of departure. It is the build up to them and the after effects of longing that we all really dread as much as we do.

Trying to revisit contact and rebuild something that may not be broken but just far off in the horizon of cobwebs and cerebral distance. This is not a good path for anyone to travel down. It is a beaten path of cold hands and worn feet; of drunken diatribes held and pushed into the ear of the sober innocent. Why do they follow the innocent so close? Must be the sense of humour, must be the intrigue. It would never be the sauce!?!?!

I think about all the shoebox pictures and scribble notes and jot downs that crowd the crates and memory chests that I should be sifting through today. I am sitting at the keyboard again. The little square keys with stamped letter representation beckoning me to tickle them like the ivories and ebony slots of piano man magic. No tune here. No tune hear. Sometimes the music stops before you are done dancing.

One of the quotes that caught my eye in volume 5 of my poetry was from a dear friend named David McKinnon. Right now he is out in the Pioneer Valley of Massachusetts and has a fabulous young lass named Melissa. His quote (based on my jagged penmanship of record it was from a very late night of too much fun) was, “Right now, my heroes are Benny Hill and Frank Zappa. My life is going nowhere!” His life has gone somewhere. I am pretty sure those two men are still his heroes. David was the best man at my wedding. David, be well and smile. Thanks for helping with the stickers and for just basically keeping it real all of the time. A sense of humour keeps it real much more than a Tommy Hilfinger coat and a few rap lyrics that you hope to write. David was and is real.

I keep listening back to my voice, the one I record, the one I am sharing with you. I wonder if that is really how I sound. I even took a poll last night and found that it is exactly what I sound like. I am happy that I am trying to keep it real.

How do you know if you are keeping it real? Are you even trying to?

How many hopscotch/Chinese jump rope dances must you go through the ritual of on a daily basis so you can tell yourself that you are real and not faking out the inquisitor across from you who wants into the very thing that you protect above and beyond all - your soul.

Some would have said heart and then smiled. Some would have thought that, some still do.

Yesterday afternoon I watched the Last Waltz , the filming of The Band’s final show. I loved every glitter moment of it and thought of BlogStream’s Captain when they would show shots of the keyboard player singing 'The Shape I'm In'. Captain keeps it real. I kept watching and listening and dancing. My rump-a-pump-rump dance made the world shake and run in fear of me, the dancing monster.

I still can’t believe that I am done with the hard part. I still have to register for my 18 month driving program that is part of the terms of my probation.

When I was growing up I never, ever, said that when I grew up that I wanted to be on probation. I have found myself there twice now. Something about giving up those 4^th amendment rights makes me think that I won’t take this road a third time. One can never say never. Noone can. But I plan on giving it a damn good shot.

Music pumps loud and proud as I have put on The Band’s Greatest Hits and think of yesterday afternoon and of the Captain.

Captain recently referred to me as strong. Others have said brilliant or eloquent. I had one person call me a God. I am just me, hoping my voice is real and right. I think myself to be weak, lonely, isolated. I try my best to relate to the World. It is more than hard at times.

I take my advice from others with a grain of salt. I take my own advice with a spoon full of sugar. Sweet and Sour. Sweet and Salty. Maybe the World is a Chinese Kitchen and not a game of jump rope around the ankles.

When you are trying to stop something, it is not the stopping that is the bummer but rather the let down of the stopping that crowds one with doubt.

I keep recognizing the signs of red. I try my best to know the yellows too.

I just keep on the rotary, hoping I know when to get off.

Getting off is always the best part …

I just had to lay down some of the living master. Beyond him is Richard Amis from Britain, Ami Bender (a UCI grad), and, well, Kurt Vonnegut.

I am doing well. I needed to get 'er done.

Smile and know that more is to come.

Many more rants must ensue tonight before the politics resume.

Biggun smiles down upon me ...

Once again the tick tack goes.

This is about a real man from Kenmore Square in Boston. Home of The Cars and Aerosmith, the square has not seen the Rathskellar in many years but instead sees the man with the dred locks and the safety pin pierced cheek.

Know it ...