Dia de Los Muertos

I had a Kerouac day. Started out at City Lights, but Ferlinghetti wasn’t in to give me the keys to Big Sur. So I had a drink or two at the bar next door (Vesuvio) and smoked a jazz cigarette with the bartender in the alleyway between the two. I felt the beat of the moment and thought of Cody and how we used to do wordplay in our car rides across the country in the early years. Before long my vision had taken me to Mission Street and I woke up with drumsticks in my hands, a skull painted on my face, leading a troop of dancers through the Dia de Muertos Parade. I was the resident incense bearer, magic maker, and poetry soothsayer. Soon I was surrounded by friends and we stopped off for more beers under the red lighted BAR sign talking to the local bums and reminiscing on the road. Serious abundance and puhala all around. Today the night seems long. And I feel grateful that this is actually a Kavanaugh story, so I don’t see the ending involving a gutter or me lying dead drunk on some beaten apartment floor like Kerouac would. Instead those drums keep driving me forward, further, into the night, beating rapidly with their fervor, a right to life.