From IDigJesus@aol.com Sun Mar 24 19:24:25 2002
Date: Fri, 28 Apr 2000 21:16:59 EDT
From: IDigJesus@aol.com
To: IDigJesus@aol.com
Subject: The Beatnik Pilgrim Vol. 5 Part 1

    [ The following text is in the "ISO-8859-1" character set. ]
    [ Your display is set for the "US-ASCII" character set.  ]
    [ Some characters may be displayed incorrectly. ]

Welcome to the Beatnik Pilgrim^Å.
If you are new to the mailing, enjoy-it is free poetry coming at you once a 
month (except for last month^Åsorry) from me, John Crowder.  Print it out, 
it's long-- and I had to break it down into two emails this month.  

1^ÅAbout where I am
2^ÅThe poetry
3^ÅSome attached photos

1^ÅAbout where I am
So, for all you kids who have been bugging me for news, here is a 
documentary/epic/update of my travels.  I left one month ago today, and truly 
I exist in another world.  I type from a one room cabin with no running 
water.  Outside my window is Kachemak Bay, as blue as a Van Gogh, and across 
the bay are a long stretch of mountains as far as the eye can see.  They are 
covered in glaciers which pour down to the ocean.  Close by is a land pier 
upon which bald eagles perch.  One day I saw about one hundred of them there. 
 Moose share the roadways, and you can sit outside and read a book until 
after 11 pm.  Perhaps next month I will tell you of the fishermen who brave 
the icy waters, the harbors which hold their boats, or the sea lions which 
play around them.  Perhaps I will tell you of the secluded Russian villages, 
or the children who are meeting God. 
I had expected to wear the Poet hat more than the Preacher hat, but it has 
not been so.
Perhaps I will devote the entire issue to love poems^Å

If anyone would like to correspond via U.S. Postal, my new address is:
P.O. Box 2411
Homer, AK. 99603

2^ÅThe poetry
I clocked my odometer
At 128K and some change
Then went inside, hugged my Dad
Rejecting the final seeds
Of doubt which he spoke
To sow in me-to hold me back
In carnal human love
Stoige's parting shot
Then walking back out
I kicked off my African tire sandals
Dropped to my knees
In a final benediction
I said, "I give you my life
And I give you my journey"
But the two are one in the same
And I signed the cross
Across my breast
Then cranking my van
In my Hawaiian shirt
And wide brown floppy hat
I drove to the end
Of my little dirt road
Threw it in park
And stepped out again barefoot
There were no cars
And I opened my tripod
In the middle of the quiet intersection
Of Dunbar School Road
And Blanton Mill

I captured three black and white 
Still frames on my Nikon
With no other soul around
And then as a Coda
I kicked the dust from my feet
And I left that place

It was 11:01am
And it began to rain

As if middle Georgia 
Mourned the loss of me
Or the elements of Christ 
Indwelling me there
All those years

I want to be able to notice
Things like the sky
There have been months
Maybe years in my life
Where I couldn't see it
Traveling up I-75
I saw smoke rising off Red Top Mountain
And there was a thick grey lid overhead
For some time until Chattanooga it remained
Where I stopped to photograph
A high arching railroad bridge
Set against the Smokies
By then it was warm and windy
And I had always wanted a shot 
Of that particular bridge

Semi trucks cut past me
Only feet away as I stood
On the shoulder of the interstate
Shaking me a bit
As they careened by
But not shaking me inside
One trucker gave a honk
Mistaking my ponytail no doubt 
For the back of a woman's head
Suppose you get a little cabin fever
Up in those rigs
We are all born 
With a little of it anyway


I took 24 into Nashville
Had some cheap tacos
And came to the end of day one
Only 305 miles that day traveled
But Marcus lived there
Marcus who is closer than brother
Whose holy cheek
Was the final face 
To kiss goodbye
The sky was such a dark rich pool
Hanging outside the windows
Which I rolled down
And kicking out of it
One sandaled foot
I waited for him
To clock out and come home
Sitting that way for some time
In the parking lot
Hearing Poochie drone away
With her distant bark
Behind his locked apartment door

I peacefully studied
The definition and contrast
Of the clouds
Some call me idle
But it was far better 
Than any TV program I have seen


That night we walked 
Through brick and neon streets
Down Painter's Alley
To a tight-walled blues club
It was dark and packed and smoky
With W.C. Clark, and old
Black guitarist from Austin, TX.
Pictures of Koko Taylor lined
A narrow balcony that wrapped around
The makeshift second floor
Looking down over Clark
And the boys
You could talk across
The distance of the room
>From one side of the balcony 
To the other
(Except for the bayou sounds
That drowned out your words)

The rhythm section kept the tempo
But never stepped out
With anything fancy
The real talent lay in Clark, 
The long haired sax player, 
And the white but soulful keyboard player
Clark's fingers danced thoughtlessly
Over the fretboard
His raspy melancholic words
Echoed from behind dark tinted glasses
And a black leather rain hat
He wore all grey with dress shoes and socks
(The way blues players do)
Turquoise in his rings and necklace
He would shake his head, "No"
At twice the pace 
Of his tapping foot

By his side, coming in and falling back
Moving and undulating is body
With every note, 
The sax player's very soul
Permeated his instrument

Towards the latter half 
Of their second set
I became drowsy
Then as from a dream I awoke again
And God was there
All over me, and I rejoiced
Swaying and closing my eyes
Drinking his presence
Which reached deep into the underbelly
Of the most desperate places

I know what wonders Merton saw
When at dusk he would slip away
>From Gethsemani monastery
For late night jazz in Louisville

Christ sang to me through the pentatonics
Of the Hammond organ
And I wondered how those around me
All seeped in bourbon and revelry
Could not see His face in those notes

We left, and the next morning 
I packed a cheap styrofoam cooler
With sandwich meat, beer and soda
The cooler squeaked obnoxiously
In my front seat
As I rolled down music highway
>From Nashville to Memphis
And then across the Mississippi
Toward Little Rock, Arkansas
I would have gone mad
Except that the squeaking 
Spoke to me of movement
It was a welcome burr
An invited pebble
In my shoe

I crossed many rivers that day
The Mississippi is praised
For her size and her strength
And rightly so
But she is not the Jordan
And there are smaller streams 
That defeat her
In beauty and determination

When I crossed the low 
And muddy Wolf River in Memphis
I was mesmerized by it
Far more than the phallic towers
And steel pyramids of that city
All erected to the love 
Of money, commerce, and power
Such respect had I 
For the L'Anguille River
That disappeared mysteriously
Into the rolling farmlands of Arkansas
That I could not in arrogance
Attempt to capture
Her secret course with my camera

When driving westward
One always rides into the sunset
He chases the day
As if to apprehend it
Before it escapes
Or bleeds away

When at last I lost the sun
On that second day of my journey
I was deep in the bowels 
Of America

The green rolling valleys and hills
That run between 
The Boston Mountains to the north
And the Ouachita Mountains to the south
Fled beneath me 
On that third morning

I felt sure that the Arkansas man
Was one of contentment
When he crossed the big river
He didn't need to chase down Oregon
Or California's gold
He just ambled over
To the first sweet patch of earth
He raised his four walls 
A barn and a quiver
Of strong, happy boys
And demure Mid-west girls
And he knew peace

Without ever sailing 
Out past the edges
Of unanswered questions
And the chance of something more

I am far too hungry
I do not know that man
I am driven as the wind

I was Oklahoma
All plastered in overcast
My wide plains were clothed
In dry beige grasses
That were my thoughts
And thousands of naked grey oak trees
Reflecting the neutral color of the clouds
My wilted form^Åand yet
Traces of some bright lavender tree
Interspersed that smoky landscape
In a blazing flare of royal purple
Even as Marty and Jen Reardon
Sang, "Look He's coming with the clouds^Å"
Over the stereo

It started to rain
In Pottawatomie County

Stopped in Oklahoma City
Some photos of myself
Skyscrapers and dogwoods
Doubted they would turn out well
Flipped through newspapers
In a magazine store
In a three day beard
In a hillbilly hat
Bought some underground U.K. poets

When I crossed the Chisolm trail
I had run one thousand miles
Billboards and gas station souvenier shops
Museums and roadside diners
All raping the Cherokee Nation
And why should I stop
At the Trail of Tears?

Hadn't I seen it before?
In the eyes of the lost^Å
In the streets of Nairobi^Å
On the ceiling of a sleepless night
When unmet love eluded me?

I see no difference
>From the life of a disciple 
And the life of a poet
Neither can live 
Apart from the hunger
Yet only the disciple knows
For whom he hungers

I sat alongside a farm road
And watched the winds
Sweep across the thick Oklahoma grasslands
As far as I could see
Only two pickup trucks passed me by
The entire time I sat there

I ate my lunch
Of two sandwiches 
(Constructed with a pocket knife)
And a Guinness
It was quiet and green
And alone
I reflected most earnestly

I ripped out a good and hearty 
Cowboy shout
When I crossed the Texas border

I met a lady
And she was Texas
She was kind
Talked of tornadoes

God is a tornado

There were oil wells
In every yard it seemed
Some no taller than me

God is an oil well

I could walk for days
Across the mesas and prairies
On the other side of Amarillo
I watched brother sun
Set over them
It was such a creamy orange liquor
Of an evening
That I prayed out loud

The lights over Tucumcari
Stretched yellow over the prairie
As I soared through New Mexico
At 80 miles per hour
She slipped up on me 
Faster than Santa Rosa
Which I saw burning
For miles beforehand
A white hot flame in the night

I was swallowed into black again
At the Pecos River
All but for the linear procession
Of nocturnal motorists
And the thick medieval tapestry
Of stars embroidered
On the roof of the western sky

I pushed myself to reach 
The 1500 mark that night
And settled at a rest area
Just outside Albuquerque
Where truckers had circled
Like wagon trains of old
With me the lone hermit
Outside their ranks

Friends and family sought 
To poison me
With their fears of humanity
But I refused to hide
Behind the deadbolt of a hotel door
And so slept as I did the night before
In the Ozarks 
Across the two front bucket seats
Of my minivan-curled
In a sleeping bag
Parked away from the street lamps

Back in those Ozarks
I'd awoken bewildered
At some strange hour
Thinking myself most literally
To be parked in a cow pasture
The gentle lowing which I had heard
Was only a cattle truck
Which was gone as I rose at 7:00
Leaving only a trail of manure

In the restroom there 
I had made haste
Seeing the present date
"3-29-00"
Scrawled in black marker
On the mirror
Above some sordid
Comment or instruction
Which I chose not to read

Granted humanity is indeed fallen

Every few hours as I drove
Into disconnection of thought
He would gently usher me
Back into His presence
Reminding me of freedom
That was my constant song
And I rarely listened 
To any other music

Around To'hajiilee
The land began to fold up
Like red satin bed sheets
The buttes and freestanding plateaus
Began to jettison upward
Into snowcapped peaks

I pulled over
Scaled a forty foot rock wall
With one bare hand
And Firestone sandals
In the other hand a folded tripod

Slipped through a barbed wire fence
Onto Indian land
The Acoma Reservation
I was a scout standing there
Forgetting that Indian blood
Flowed in my own veins
Yet somehow knowing
That this was my land
And nobody's land

And I was Joshua
Taking every hill of the San Mateo Mountains
Wherever I placed my foot
Yet with the Pueblo
I claimed no ownership
For what can man own?
Tell me, what can man own?

Jim Elliot told me
Long before I left the Georgia farmlands
(Where I learned to weave
Through barbed wire fences)
That no man is a fool
Who gives up what he cannot keep
In order to gain
What he cannot lose

To think this land was formed
In some few days
Steepled cliffs so high
They scrape the bottoms of the clouds
And then reformed 
Like firebaked Navajo pottery
In some days more
Beneath the briny weight
Of Noah's flood
To think this 
Is to ascend

I drifted into an old café
In Gallup, New Mexico
Waited for new tires
And the one hour photo
I nodded to an old Navajo man
Sat at the bar
With my first black swallow of coffee
In four days
A broken tape deck
Spilled country and western across the room

Mismatched chairs
Log rafters painted turquoise
Old, ragged red carpet
Walls cluttered with dusty framed prints
Of Indian chiefs and gunfighters
In velvet and oils
Trains bound to and from Santa Fe
Rolled outside the window
Along the corpse of Route 66

A tourist never knows
The truth of a place
Tourists are not synonymous
With pilgrims

Though I deliberated some
I bypassed the Painted Desert
The Petrified Forest
The Meteor Hole

There were Catholic missions
Built of Adobe
Set in the clefts of the hills
And freedom welled in me
I could have turned left
Into Mexico
And to South America beyond
And never returned
I almost did

High country began 
The day I hit Flagstaff
Bordered by three or four
Enormous sentinels
In and out of snow
Down into deserts
High plains and peaks
And then the sunset
Observed through a coffee shop window
At the Grand Canyon
Where I slept on a wooded road

The Canyon spoke to me 
In the morning
But it was too cold to listen for long
And I stole down 
Through sad, dry Navajo lands
The real painted desert
Whose hundreds of layers 
Of green, white, red and black stone
Must surely contain
Dragon's bones and silver goblets
Likewise buried in Noah's day

It was a place of warfare
A hollow, surreal world
Yellow, yellow, yellow grasses

Up another mountain
And I began to lose track of them
I retired the camera
Or else I would never gain ground
High plains at 4k and 5k
Down into more deserts 
And the Colorado River
Was a broad green amethyst
Fairy tale mountains
That weren't really this high
I was truly riding 
Through Aslan's sky

I saw Zion
And as far as I am concerned
I have so seen all of Utah

Highway 9 runs 
Like a tourist trap
Through Mormon country
So you shell out an Andrew Jackson
To pass through her
Or you drive back over the mountain
The price was too small

I loaded my best roll of 800 speed
And danced over the the wide, smooth stone
Like a boy on a playground
I truly was a child
I pounced from boulder to boulder
Every looming façade
Stared down into your face
And around every corner
Was some new contortion of sandstone
That didn't belong on this earth
I was almost happy
When I locked my keys in the van
I paid it little attention considering
That I was so glazed over
In the will of God right then
That I knew he had for it
Some purpose

I carried on
Burned half a roll of film 
Before even attending to the Marshmallow

The Marshmallow is the queen diva
Of white minivans
After locking up those keys
Four separate times previously
I felt I had reached 
A rite of passage
In my life
A place where the boy
No longer needs the elders 
To hunt for him
For he, himself
Must kill the lion

On two of the earlier lockouts
I had called on the White Knight
A middle aged urban hero
Who roamed the streets of Roswell, Georgia
In a convertible white Mustang
Defending the cause 
Of the helpless motorist
At fifty bucks a pop

The White Knight used 
Sophisticated car jacking tools
For a flair of professionalism

The other two prior lockouts
Were assisted by policemen
Using an easier method 
>From which I learned much
By stroking their egos
And acting impressed
One can acquire their services 
At no charge
Loaning them 
>From their harrowing duties
At the Waffle House

Like David refusing Saul's armor
I thumbed down no help
But stooped to the floor
Of the desert canyon
And chose three small tools

A stone
A sliver of wood
And an azalea branch

I slew the lion

Zion offered me
My first bath in four days
Before that, I had used water
Cold from the cooler
Zion's waters 
Were no warmer
Yet far more romantic
Locked in a hidden ravine
Walls forty to fifty feet high
A long narrow pool
Where some drifting pioneer
Or Paiute brave
Must have watered his saddle horse
And cleaned from his neck and arms
The dust from the trail

Back through the corner of Arizona
Into Nevada
And over the highest Rockies yet
Back down into desert
The cycle continued 
Each time with more extremity
Through the Moapa Indian Reservation
Past the Valley of Fire

Vegas held no allure for me
But I stopped for gas 
And phoned my mother
When I passed Mercury
I had forgotten that I was in America
I hugged the western edge
Of the Nellis Airforce Bombing range
Just over Yucca Mountain to my right
And across the Pahute Mesa

I drove through the desert sands
All evening
Before the sun hesitated 
And strolled passed the rugged peaks

Nevada is a desert full of dirty little casinos
I offered the whore
Not one coin from my pocket

I bypassed Death Valley
Seen that place before, too
A lot like Athens, Georgia
Lowest point in the U.S.A.
That place comes and goes as it pleases
You don't need a park pass to see it
Or a woman's love 
To bring you there

Yet still it's just a shadow
And I shall fear no evil

Your senses are honed in the desert
I pulled over that night 
To look at the stars
I had never seen that many
For there is no cloud in the desert
And every celestial body
Flickers and pulses
When a car did come by
I closed my eyes from it's lights
To retain my clearest vision

I saw the Milky Way's belt
Broad and thick waisted
And Orion's entire body
Not just a rugged outline
I was Orion that night
I wondered if I would see him anymore
In the north country

I saw constellations
Which I had never seen
Ursula the Bear, Scorpio, Boeing 747
Even the very heart of God
Perhaps they were only imagined
But I saw them, nevertheless

The road to Yosemite 
Was closed to snow
So I landed for the night
In the high plains of California
On a silent desert road

My sixth day of travel
Took me through the wintry
Sierra Nevada range
I climbed and descended
To ethereal Byzantine chants
I stopped at Convict Lake
A small clear pool
Tucked into a little bowl
Beneath the skyward thrust
Of stone that never ended

>From open range ranches in the valleys
To clear blue chandelier lakes
Suspended at heavenly elevations
I weaved all morning through
The mountains of California
The smell of clutch
Seven story redwoods
Tin roofed cabins
Smooth rolling rivers

It occurred to me^Å
You cannot write a love poem
When you are not in love

But when you are in love^Å
Your life is a poem

Down through Sacramento
Where depression like a wall
Collided with me unexpectedly
And I looked at photographs
Doubting myself 
And my station in life
And as the prophecy
Unraveled itself before me
I wept that day 
Through the Valley of Baca

I got lost in San Francisco
And as I began to fall in love
With the town
With the Spanish art sunny seventies feel
I got pulled over 
For gunning a red-light
And I flipped the switch
And crumpled the ticket
And flipped off some cat
And crumpled my lyrics
And eventually remembered who I was
And practiced the presence of God
And peace took me over
The Golden Gate Bridge
Where I chased Highway 1
Up the coast until nightfall

Parked on a cliffside
Overhanging the Pacific Ocean
Where down below
Orange campfires signaled surfers, 
Beach dwellers, and street kids
I saw the police helicopter 
Hovering over the whole of us
It's spotlight sometimes
Scanning through my own windshield
I covered my eyes
And eventually sleep overcame me

Propping myself on one elbow
As daylight breathed morning into me
I read the book of Jude 
To the Pacific Ocean
And afterward bathed in her
She was violent and cold
And I could not bear her
She spit me out before I could enter her
And I departed no cleaner
For she caked me with sand

I winded up that coastline all day
Through redwood forests
With the thickest, wettest
Forest smells that a simple man
Cannot help but believe in
Towns were small 
And filled with cabins
Filled with hippies
RV's and ocean smells
When I finally hit 101
The highway straightened out a bit
And I sailed into Eureka

Met an angel in Eureka
Wanted to wash my windows
Said I could pay him
But that he'd do it anyway
And to his wide smile
And thick bearded face
I gave a Judas kiss
And walked away
His face contorted in shame
Or humility
And later when I remembered
Why I had come this far
>From home
I turned around to find him
For I had sinned
And I was grieved
But he had disappeared

Every establishment
Along the Redwood Highway
Is littered in front
With log carved sculptures
Of bears
And Indians
And windmills
If I were a sculptor
Skilled with a chainsaw
I would starve
Or else resolve my sad hands
To bears
And Indians
And windmills

I determined that perhaps
California would be 
A most wonderful place
If only one could somehow
Dissect a few cities from it

Stopping in Crescent City
I walked the boat harbor
And took a few hours of sabbatical
At Denny's 
Where I collected my notes
Before crossing into Oregon
And ending my first week on the road

New oil and a serpentine belt
And I was soon winding
Again along the Coastal Range
Oregon was thick with fog
In the very green 
Mystical forest of the morning
Through the billowy cloud
I would often see the ocean
Hanging hundreds of feet 
Below me to the left

I left the waters at Florence
Moving inland through
Eugene, Salem, and Portland
Where I caught rush hour traffic
And sat stationary for a good solid hour
Some punk kid in an old clunker
Who wore no shirt and flicked cigarettes
Out his window
Kept switching lanes and checking his mirrors
All in vain
I could feel his impatience
Resounding from his tapping fingers
And marveled at the idea 
Of what he must be running from
Probably God

In Washington
I saw from a great distance
The empty ravished hull
Of Mount St. Helens
And across from her
The bright perky tower
Of Storm King Mountain
My cooler started to squeak again
It was a new one 
I had picked up in Utah
The wretched grind of styrofoam
Sliced in behind my eyes
I could taste the sound 
As it streaked up my spine
And through every nerve ending
And synapse
It drove me to speak in tongues
Before buffering the edges 
With newspapers

Seattle held no more allure 
To me than Vegas
And I didn't care that it was
Two days before the sixth anniversary
Of Kurt Cobain's death
He never wanted to be an icon
I only stopped for coffee and a phone call
And it rained all throughout
My last night in the lower 48