The Teacher plays his bongos in the dark,

a beanie on his head, eyes shut and squeezed

off from, or maybe in - a dime bag hangs

so delicately balanced on his knees.

We watch in filthy basements, eyes half closed

half open through the fog, expecting god,

anticipating devils kicking out

the climax. But it fades. The Teacher nods.

Well shit, the stillness lingers for a while.

What are we waiting for? Another round?

Light up. The moment passes, hits the ground,

collapses. I lean back, recalling sound.

“Dude, that was awesome…” Mary whispers out,

still satisfied. “So fucking good…” she sighs.

I lift my cup in toast, a paper cup

of cheap-ass wine, the shit that Mary buys,

and bow my head. “The Teacher.” and that’s all

I think to say, and “To the Teacher, guys.”

I sound like I’m retarded, but they shrug

and drink to that. I fumble. Mary sighs.

Some kid in black collects the green like dust,

slicing, and shifts the product on a chair,

into the paper, spreads the stuff around,

and licks it shut. The Teacher and I stare,

exchanging glances. Yeah, it’s nice and fat.

Alright, puff-pass. The roller takes the first,

breathes in, exhales, he chuckles then leans back.

My turn comes up. I didn’t really mind

the way it burned me as a I took a hit.

So I sucked hard and waited for the rush

of sanity when I don’t give a shit.

Man, they slip out so easy, all these ghosts

inside my lungs, and all that scattered ash

over my skull. I felt them in my bones,

green grass like money, green like burning cash.

Mary coughed twice and giggled, smiled at me

and then at Teach; his pay for play had come.

He held it for a moment in his hands,

caressing it, staring at it, struck dumb.

“You know,” he started, almost to himself,

“see, ‘El’ in Hebrew is a word for God,

so this is the Shekhina burning out…

that wasn’t really meant to be out loud.”

And we all laughed, but Teacher had a point.

“Hell yes, I feel divine right now,” he said,

and paused. “Divine, alive, divine, alive…”

trailed off in thought, and shook his dirty head.

Not one of us was more alive than he,

and we all knew it, so we kept our place

in the dynamic of a humble class,

the Teacher wearing badges on his face.

A scar from someone’s knife, a cut from mine

back when I kicked his ass, another mark

above his left eye, proved him true to life,

a beaten vessel for that holy spark.

We chased it like mad moths into the flame

that swallows whole and spits them out. “…but Teach!”

my Mary started, “what about that love

that feeds our raw emotion when we reach

the very heights of human intellect

till we can’t take it anymore!” She burned

with young glorification of her heart.

The Teacher hardly looked at her and turned

around to grab the blunt and take a hit.

Mary, reduced to woman, looked away.

Some guys burst into laughter having caught

some crucial stoner-moment of the day.

I took her hand. “Come on now, baby, look,

sure love is fine, but logic feeds the mind,

that intellect that sets our beings apart

and joins us with development in kind.”

It had to be this way; that reason rules.

Love has no place among the broken-down.

Poor hopeful, wait till ‘the weight of the world’

creeps over you and turns your pink to brown.

Hell, maybe it was pity. Maybe love.

Or maybe envy. She could see it clear.

“I took it on” she whispered, “like the cross

that carries me around when you’re not here.”

Like this we kissed. The band began to play

a bit of jazz for all the lonely souls.

A young’n on the bass tugged at his strings,

a pro on cowbell asked for whom it tolls,

and so we laughed. The maestro on the keys

trilled out his little plans, the Teacher beat

our call to arms, his presence shut and squeezed.

Four hours later six of us were left.

The aftertaste of vice hung in the air.

We liked the way it settled, so we stayed

until the sun came up and with a glare

sobered us down. Reality’s a bitch.

Groggy and disillusioned, dry-mouthed, low-

lidded and tongue-tied up in arms, we sighed

collectively and knew that it was time.

Tight bodies shifted, thinking they should go.

I hadn’t slept all night, the Teacher played

his bongos in the dark until the dawn,

that rosy-fingered cunt who likes it rough.

I was exhausted, but I didn’t yawn.

There was a bit of window at the top

that looked out at the street above our heads;

the feet that shuffled, heels that pounded by,

the soles so worn they might as well be dead.

I crawled up to it, sitting on a shelf

like day-old milk, churned sour discontent,

and held a small green notebook on my lap.

Composed a poem. This is how it went:

Ring around the Mary-go-round

Little lambs sleeping safe and sound

Mary sighing in the underground

Round the tygers Mary-go-round

Fucking hell. I crossed the bull shit out.

Felt Mary stirring softly on the floor,

and stared out at the light cascading in.

I wouldn’t let this happen anymore,

her heart was just too good to carry mine.

I tapped the pen discreetly to my neck,

coughed heavy, pissed the rhythm wouldn’t come,

the poem wasn’t there, I was a wreck,

I hadn’t bathed in days, I looked like shit,

I couldn’t write or fucking smile at her

the way she does for me. I couldn’t be

for her the way she was for me, the way we were.

“‘Morning is when I am awake and there

is dawn within me.’” Teacher sang and coughed.

I crawled down from my window to my girl

and kissed her dryly. Mary’s sigh was soft.

The Teacher had already tapped the skin,

sat patiently beside his drum and stared,

he held a drumstick to his beating vein

and let it throb. The others hardly cared

about his mortal soul, his bloodshot eyes,

but Mary noticed his pale skin, and frowned

at me. I swallowed in reply, and downed

the final bit of wine they passed around.

Like bears from hibernation, after months

of isolation, kept in from the cold,

we straightened out our clothes and, trudging up

the stairs, recalled past guidelines we were told.

Deadlines we screwed, job applications due,

advice and threats benefactors endowed

us with, all these flood in, as we emerge

from cave-like basements. Plato would be proud.

The sun is harsh, we crawl out hand in hand

like Kafka’s vermin, long past any use,

preferring chipping walls to fresh mowed lawns.

This is the chipped reality we choose.

Well sure they look at us like we’re fucked up,

and I suppose we are. But nothing’s wrong

with some old fashioned sit-in-worthy cause,

passive rebellion, seven hippies strong.

We changed the world that night, the Teacher did,

we watched him do it, Mary held my hand

and sighed her blood-heart love-sick sigh. We closed

our eyes and heard the second coming land

among us in some basement, dirty floors

and carpet stains and all. We bade him sit

and eat and rock some ganja, smoke and drink,

be merry till he didn’t give a shit.

I thought that’s how it ends, figured as much.

Squinting outside, I lit a cigarette.

The air was just too clean, the homes too white

to shrug off any ash and just forget.

“Hey man, you want a smoke?” I offered Teach.

By now we loitered somewhere on the block.

“Naw kid, I work at 9. Shower and eat.

Gotta run if I wanna beat the clock.”

I nodded. So did Mary. Crushed the butt,

watching the Teacher walk off down the street.

I let go of her hand. “Have a nice life.”

I figured there were better things to beat.