I was pulling up some 10 base T cable for one of our servers
talking to Ginsberg
like I do now
since he won't leave me alone

I'd been sitting in the office
having coffee,
beluga,
glad I hadn't settled for eighty grand
and he schwinns in, tells me I should have shot the moon
tugs on my hair plugs
chucks my toothpaste
squats, craps on my Bruno Maglia shoes
busts a stitch laughing at my gym-built temple
overturns my tabula rasa
so it's more picnic, less IKEA...

I'd seen him on billboards
sporting khaki
selling his luscious little frame
but he looked different in person
a little paunchier
a little prettier
but I still knew him for Ginsberg
easily recognizable
from my boardroom photos of him and Kerouac
a conglomerate of them 'n Ferlinghetti
or a zaibatsu of him, Kerouac, and the rest of them
maybe you could throw Cassidy in there
I don't really care
(I've read them very little
and know them even less),
some fresh living, seal-packed, underthrown, half-rung middlemen
working their way to the bottom
as quickly as possible
and giving a laugh for hell
or demon's heaven.
Ita-daki-masu
your dharma and greg
DA DA DA
E.T. alien Eliot
ommm ommm ommm
mofo,
Need i say more?

He's bugged me less
since I started to give him what he wanted:
An occasional mumble about
wishing i were drunk on the job,
or ["I wish I were"] halfway to Nevada with a busted windshield,
pepped up on crystal meth ,
driving for three days till the dawn comes up behind us
"Yes yes yes yes YES!"
Maybe I start to believe it.

Al keeps telling me I need to focus
and I keep telling him to get me a car
and he says I need to steal one;
I say I'll ride across the country,
and he says
drive it into the ocean.
He says:
"It's not done by road
or trip
or even road trip
anymore.
If you wanted to see anything new in America
you'd have to ride a megafauna kitten.
There's nothing out there anyway, not anymore,
nothing at all" (and his eyes dropped a little like he's saying goodbye to someone)
he says "They're no longer visions of the Lord,
think of another trip."

I tell him how I've tried everything he tried
since he started bugging me
and it was all the same, perfectly replicated, to my mind:
the trips, the drugs, the poetry slams, the midnight ranting, the singing of The Lady and mimicry of Miles on the subway
with nothing more than a coxcomb and beeswaxpaper
to appreciative babies,
midnight winter rides with the window down
The beamer, Bach and Blaupunkt variations until the sun, the cold, the frost turned sharp like a six-point star
holy holy holy

"I'm not bitching," I said,"about my failure.
It's just that I tried everything you did and still didn't go half as far."

"And?"

"It just surprises me."

"Well, then, you're halfway there."