The Question That Killed Cassady

Codified bridge from beat to hippie
A rudderless vessel of psychedelic discovery
Unclean machine of perpetual perversity
Transiting between altered states and cities
Fueled by sweaty adrenaline
And wanderlusty audacity
Skin blistering with palpitating authenticity
Oozing sexuality and howling holy obscenities
Under an umbrella of numinous luminosity

Scribbling notes along the envelope’s edge
Twinkling between the rock of a twisted fix
And the hard place of standing still
A high wire daredevil driving a tight rope
Reading I Ching and levitating twenty steel tons
Another wild mad dash Furthur up highway 1
Burning benzedrine, LSD, and destiny
Bearing Dean Moriarty’s On The Road legacy

Scraping handlebar guardrails
Rambling through every rubber-burning turn
Bopping to the beat of a different apocalypse
Seven-pointed star with lightning lips
Careening through rag-tag jazz manuscripts
Reeling off an unseen screen
Switching scenes between half a dozen twisted flicks
Behind the wheel of the big reveal
At the helm of the bus that launched ten thousand trips

Well, Cowboy Neal was a curious cat
A cameo character with a craning neck
Jaunting through panoramic habitats
Hand dealt from the underside of the deck
Rolling out the film in reverse
Drunkard orphan hitching the skids
Toward the outskirts of the Universe
They say feline lives number nine
Cassady ran through them three at a time
The first third flying by at high velocity
The second third the reborn bon vivant of literary immortality
The third third cut short by the fall of a curtain call
Yeah, the third third of that cat’s tale
Well, that didn’t happen at all
Feline lives, they come in nines
But how many railroad ties
Is it to the end of the line?

It’s the question that killed Neal Cassady
What glitters in the corner of all I see?
Past yesterday’s unfettered artistry
Behind the rat-a-tat patter of the acid test barker
And wry grin of the irrepressible skylarker
Rapping off a scatter-shot branched narrative
Dripping with hedonism and vainglory
It’s the metastasized story of a reformatory refugee
Chasing an insatiable curiosity
Well, they say curiosity is what killed the cat
But, baby, satisfaction is what brought him back

Get a load of this sensational sensation
Groove on that wonderstruck unstuck vibration
Hang up those hang-ups and grab the phone
There’s a call for you from the great unknown
Notions in motion on waves of “maybe” and “let’s see”
The core of Aporia, the glory of all that happens to be
Boundless novelty over yonder horizon
A maze of labyrinthine amazement
Accumulated cumulus clouds cushioning the seering Sun
Under myriad piercing gazes conjuring allegorical fantasies
Crystallized visions dug up to resurrect
Sights and sounds and synesthetic scents
No mind left unblown
No line left unbent

Dig it, digits, with opposable thumbs
Jutting out to beckon whatever may come
Wrapped up in tarpaulin folds of undertow
And tidal flows of who knows where it’s gonna go
Packed in the back of Serendipity’s pick-up jalopy
Following the fortunes of random roadside processions
Cosmos shattered through dew-drop prismed progressions
Unlocking spectral rainbows trapped inside indifferent infinity
Sun-spun cycles of last chances and first impressions
Melodies plucked from moaning droned tonalities
Unfolding untold golden eternities

Electrified steel-wrought mechanical dreams
Stoked on the steam from locomotive combustion
Meeting each moment beneath a scalding stream
Of quantum kinetic connotative implications
Multi-faceted visceral crystal-shard rings
Trembling in orbit around Cassady’s question
Ripping the fabric of the grace-slime continuum
Sinless, schizo-maniacal saint of the strange
Marking space, time, and novel conundrums
Across whatever remains of the vanishing free range
Psychedelic skipper sailing through the Big Dipper
Seekin’ All Seekin’ All….
Was it ultimately the quest
Or just the ultimate question
That finally did unkneeling Cassady in?

Oh, the question that killed Neal Cassady
How far to that city he would never see?
They say feline lives number nine
Cassady ran through them three at a time
Chasing that terminal curiosity
Notions in motion on waves of “maybe” and “let’s see”
The core of Aporia, the glory of all that will ever be
Feline lives, they come in nines
But how many railroad ties is it is it is it
How many railroad ties is it to the end of the line?
Well, they say curiosity is what killed the cat
But, baby, satisfaction is what brought him back
And so the question came and went
No mind left unblown
No line left unbent