From Autobiography of My Alter Ego

Summers when Mother & I visited
                              Tulsa, Grandpa Augustus
would say, Boy, you
                              were born one hundred steps
ahead of many. You
                              inherited the benefit of a doubt.
That's your birthright.
                              A man may have a million bucks
in his pig-skin billfold,
                              but you're still ten steps ahead.
I'd say, Do Mama
                              & Granny have the benefit,
too? He'd grin & say,
                               Hell, yeah! But, son,
you're already miles ahead.
                              Then we'd each take a spoonful
of our home-made peach ice cream.
                              Granny would appear big
as an Oklahoma sunset in the doorway
                              with her hands on her hips,
& say, Gus, please don't
                              teach that boy your craziness.
A new day is around
                               the corner. I could see my mother
getting smaller. My father
                              was somewhere on his touring bus
outside Orlando or skirting
                              Las Vegas, humming a new song
under his breath as they rounded
                              a curve. Sometimes
she cried herself to sleep
                              or drank small bottles of rum,
& then we'd chew Juicy Fruit
                              till I could see the man
in the moon sitting on the windowsill.
                               Grandpa would whisper,
I don't care what your Granny says.
                              The benefit of a half doubt
is worth more than gold in the bank,
                               more than rubies & diamonds
stolen out of the eye sockets
                              of some Egyptian sun god
hidden in a cashbox
                              somewhere in the Florida Keys.
My Daddy, bless him, body
                              & soul, was a cover artist
back in the early '50's. So,
                               I grew up with a white face
mouthing black voices, with Mister Bones
                              talking black & making love
to my mother in a midnight room.
                              He was debonair in powder-blue
suits & paisley ascots, in patent leather
                              shoes that moved the sky
as he walked across the grass.
                              When he wasn't on the road
or here at The Chimera Club
                              like a hawk at the cash drawer,
he lived in a room of mirrors,
                              his chrome turntables
spinning up the bottom of a well
                              as he tried to capture
Nat Cole & Mister B.
                              The voice was always his
when he spoke, but I heard
                              the yardman's "Amazing Grace"
those nights & days he sang.

* * *

I hitchhiked a year
                              with Bullet, my impish
gray mutt. She was the only one
                              who didn't come to me
as a stranger, wagging her tail
                              as if I'd gone around the block
for an hour. I left my mother
                              waving in the doorway, my father
drunk in the den. With guitar
                               & rucksack, we slept in bindweed
& kudzu, apple orchards & ball
                               fields, beneath trestles
& in voluptuous, borrowed beds
                              in one-horse towns, flophouses
& parks in big cities,
                              wild songs & flowers
in my wild hair. I thumbed
                              the pages of dog-eared
Articles of War, a ghost
                              of Nam still in the clothes
I wore. I was thankful
                              for the Big Dipper & the night
owl in the oaks, thankful
                              Bullet hadn't growled & barked
that morning, as she'd done
                              so many times before
when I brought home
                              the slow perfume of women
on my clothes & hands.

* * *

Sometimes I feel broken. My arms
                              a boy's, daydreaming
baseball & horseshoes. My legs
                              with weights tied to them.
One part of me feels unlived,
                              & another feels almost used up,
licked clean by too many desires
                              good for one man. Sometimes
it seems I've been everywhere                              
                              Adam's Bridge, Les
Eyzies, Nicobar, Swan, Zadar,
                              & then again
sometimes it feels as if I haven't
                              been broken in yet,
depending on how daybreak
                              falls into a bedroom window.
I've bartended here
                              at The Chimera Club
for over twelve years,
                              but I've also worked
as a tool-&-die man in Detroit,
                              a dogcatcher in Manitou,
a blackjack dealer in Biloxi,
                              a dishwasher at The Cosmic
Onion in the Big Apple,
                              a gang boss in Galveston,
& smelled nothing but death
                              for over a year on a floating
factory off the coast of Alaska.
                              Yes, friend, there are seven
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