all dates blind dates and crosses

she came to the crossing laden with kisses,
in my bed the following
mornings, a week or two went by
and i learned she was 19,
not 21 (1989)
the first time a lover
threw up in bed
                      (not the last time, naturally)
3 point 2 beer at least has an air of innocence,
                      like a pie in the windowsill
there at the east Lawrence ramshackle
hippy living arrangment
in which i shared a room with those mammal asses
filthy greek pederast lawyer
honoring every Bastille day like Xmas
with bells and ribbons on his dong.
"Leave it to the Professionals,"
his mantra of midnight bliss there at Waldo's
dad's cabin. the other roomie,
Bone as he was called, was roomie
with Brad Pitt in Mizzou. she came to 
the X-ing and was looking for Robert Johnson,
                          she got her forest
i got my gump, on, with gumption. trusted her
but not Kris Kunning there with her
Valentines evening i showed up
unexpectedly, with boyfriend candy and flowers,
caught her red handed then on the verge
of betrayal, so wasn't surprised
when after going out of town for the weekend
she went hot-tubbing with the Paw dude,
mark. mark. marks---my face
a mess, having drunk-dove into a shallow
lake, dumb and bruised, she tells me
she's not moving to San Francisco
like we planned. OK. i go there,
she comes to visit, a month or so in,
me living off Pierce between Fell and Oak,
Fred Douglass Plaza, a good spot.
she wants to stay. no, no thanks
former. ex. back to dating old men, or
our friends, for you. she came 
to the T-ing, our roads born to diverge,
shafted. Les Claypool,
pass the balloon, before you pass out.
sing the crossings,
the splintered wood of the bar
where Dan Rather gave his Vietnam War
broadcasts, as the Student Union burned
to the ground, amidst riots, and
heroin needles across from the University
Chapel. Fog Allen, or Forest,
slam dunks the leather. Naismith calls the game
his own: casketball. a year or two later,
i'm a gringo Mayan at Teotihuacan,
fasting for 2 weeks, dressed in white
high as a kite, tethered on a string of 500 years
of Viking and Spanish savagery, 1992.
not Quetzalcoatl himself could have
more red hair, or plumage of pain, dragging
hieroglyphics in my mind's skin,
thinking of crossed loves.
she came,
crossed my I, and swore to never bye.
Quantrill's raid, terrorism by any
other name: treason hewed of limestone,
66 million years old, patterns of
sea skeletons crisscrossed, there in Hoch,
when the thunder bolt blew fire down into the
old Koyaanisqatsi basketball court, GOAL.
the opposing team walks to the blot
godi, willingly, in that old cult of honor,
their hearts in their foe's hands
dopple-cross



" In August 1863 Quantrill led an attack on the town, killing more than 180 civilians, supposedly in retaliation for the casualties caused when the women’s jail had collapsed."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quantrill%27s_Raiders