Whiskey Is The Answer

I saw it on a tee shirt.

The guy wearing it looked like he believed.

Maybe he knew.

All phenomena are vivid, pure illusion.

Why ask why?

That’s the flower the Buddha held up.

A smile was the appropriate response.

Going back to the title, when I was drunk,

I didn’t have many questions, only a few

good ones that I don’t remember because 

they were answered or they weren’t important.

The constant, important, intense questioning 

of my youth is gone, no longer there.

The military is right here, across from where

I sit, buying ice cream, luckily.

They have no reason for me to be a question 

to them.

“I’m just waiting for a hamburger, Senors.

I don’t want a revolution as I did when I was young…

there are plenty of criminals out there somewhere,

go there! Have fun!”

Drink some whiskey…you might find the answer there.

Don’t let fear keep you from the truth.

“When the windows all are broken, 

and your love’s become a toothless crone.”

It’s a claymation arising out of nowhere.

There’s always another door.

Listen to the dim/smoky light, the smell of

leather and oak and roses and death in the man cave.

A shaman sits near to me on the sidewalk,

not, I imagine, for no reason.

A black and red butterfly flew in front of me,

low, down the street.

An half an hour later, it flew past me the other way,

again low, close to the street.

Clouds peeking above the mountaintops.

That’s where the storms come from…

…later.