SATORI IN PARIS, TEXAS by Jeff Callaway

SATORI IN PARIS, TEXAS
by Jeff Callaway

in a lonesome
hotel room in Paris, Texas
in exile from all that i love
apart from all that has left me drunk
staring into a Rusty Wallace Commemorative Can
of Miller Light as begin to realize
how i’ve wasted precious time on sour desserts
like how much a gram of methamphetamine is worth
instead of how much the Dixie Chicks might love
a Texas Poet

and now it’s satori in Paris, Texas and i know it
because two roads have diverged in the woods
but only one can be chosen
and one left behind

after my woman done left me and my dog done died
and in the Texas penitentiary i spent some time
after i lost my house and my car and my mind
and finally i realize that i’ve wasted my time
on a monkey on my back that’s chasing a white line
and now this satori in Paris, Texas is mine
and not Jack Kerouac’s

so i drink down a tall can of Pabst and i swallow hard
and try to forget my book of blues and Big Sur sorrows
and how i almost lost my book of dreams
and my visions of Girard and Cody
to a silver spoon syringe sorority
and now my Maggie Cassidy wont even talk to me

so i need to kick soon or i’ll be kicked
when i find a final fifty-thick fix too thick

before i get to see my sweet baby sister again
or tell her and my Mom and Dad i love them again
or finally find me the house, the wife and two kids
or just get drunk at the club with my closest friends
or write more Texas Outlaw Press chapbooks to print
or i enter my poem in the poetry contest and win
or i get to travel the world and see other continents
satori is i refuse to be another fading trend
satori is to save my poetic life of sin
so that finally my hypodermic battle will end
and my new life can begin

then my triumphant return to Austin, Texas
can be penned…