Jesus Gone Away

Trying to make the most of the holidays in a Buddhist country, it fit him like a hand-made shoe, the mantra of Christmas and the rest, fuck-it he thought. Henry and Jesus a million miles away from each-other, in his heart knowing it was safer not to bother, it was brain-clutter, a dirty old man in the nut-house.  

Henry at it again, writing what-ever it was, sitting in Wah Wah coffee shop, sucking up a bowl of noodles, chile peppers burning his mouth, choking on the stuff, happy to finish it and get to the coffee.  

Wondering whey he bothered with it, the writing or the chile peppers. In a vacuum with-out feed-back, an old punch-drunk boxer in the last round just about out and hanging in there, going down. 

Henry’s literary dreams, dream-prose  wrapping itself around you, 3 D poetry breathing, alive, poised to attack. Waking-up and graving the stuff, it was junk for him.  

What the others thought didn’t matter, he just did it that’s all, there was no reason for it and who said there had to be?

Henry moved from Milwaukee to Hawaii when he was fifty.  The East different, old and new at the same time. A Banyan Tree on top of over-grown roots above ground rising into the heavens, or,  not wearing shoes in the house, eating rice instead of potatoes, eating cross-legged on the floor, eating raw-fish, asian-phobic stuff, things unthinkable for some in the West.  

Twenty years after moving to the tropics nothing turned Henry on much anymore, cocaine was still a kick but it didn’t last. Life didn’t last either, not even for the washed and converted. 

In the end you were left with a big question mark on the page, that was OK Henry thought, there was nothing you could do about it anyway.