randy

road.
impossibly there that car
i can avoid just keep moving
it freezes like a deer
don’t. stop. there.

bang sky flying silence.
slowly slowly it turns and turns
no ground beneath its black wheels
aerial dancing seat over wheels over seat
it is beautiful but should not be there

silent acrobatics i look up
from the ground
and sound is switched on
cars yelling and people screeching to a halt
don’t move why not?

the frozen-like-deer is dented and smeared
and she does not know what to do does not know what to do
don’t move oh my god
but i can’t get up
something
isn’t
working

wails and flashing lights a big white box arrives
and randy is somehow there
look at this look at that don’t close your eyes
why can’t i stop shaking
randy looks sick but why
they cover me and lift me and set me down

randy says i’ll go with him
doesn’t ask permission
and jumps in with them and me
look at this look at that don’t close your eyes
wails and flashing lights
white box moves too slowly

i
go

methodical voices not alarmed
not understood
but recorded computed slotted into place
questions abbreviated into statements
by their reckoning i am not there

numbness i can not see them
body owned and manipulated by others
strange pullings
wet sounds
methodical voices not alarmed
saying this probably won’t work

again i go
but wander back after a time
because
because
i am curious

strange smell bad taste
strange room focuses itself around me
nobody greets my return
strange woman in white
gets the man with the unalarmed voice
and trustworthy manner

he tells me what they’ve done
and why
foot to hip, plastered and wrapped

and then
family mother brothers
saying stupid things
and not-my-father who thinks he told me so
fuck off i think but he doesn’t know

the white box man checks on me
where’s randy

patriarch asks what I want
and I tell him
and eventually it is so but that is much later

now i get metal sticks to hold and use
in lieu of leg
i am rolled out

later i see randy finally
his always-worried eyes still worried
even smiling through some unknown hurt
perhaps the world’s i don’t know
how are you doing

i can’t tell you
how you were the only one of them
who did something
who showed me what a friend does
who didn’t have anything better to do
or a post to watch that was more important

where are you
now?

For long missing friend, Randy Goodman. You know what this is about.
16 January 2011, Los Angeles