Mike Faran

Some Names Always Seem to Come Up at Biker Bars

Sure, bailsmen & lawyers & doctors et. al. are
mentioned.  Even business cards are shuffled &
exchanged

But Jesus gets tossed around a lot-
the turning of water into wine thing,
the overturning of the money-lenders’ tables, etc.

Forgiving the adulteress & the murderer are topics
discussed with great gusto

Jesus was a kick-ass XXXXX, remarked Gypsy Bill
over a boilermaker

Satan’s name doesn’t come up much

He never made them wine;
He never forgave

He never loved a woman so much that the ground
shook & fires danced in the sky
& trees sang lie Elvis

He never wore the colors like Jesus did

(Originally appeared in Abbey.)

The 1949 Hudson Super Six

                in memory of Jack Kerouac

The big red car was peeling paint-
ragged layers of lacquer flapped in
the hot California breeze,
they were singing a foreign
language or
keeping beat to a jazz radio

In mid-fifties America there were
worse problems….like a war that would
never start

The bastard in the Studebaker in front
of me was also a kid,
His girlfriend’s blonde head bopped
up and down from his lap-
but he, too, had problems

His rear suspension was shot; the gas-
tank would slam the road
spraying out white sparks into the big
chrome teeth of my grille

But my main concern was the purple
deuce behind

They were getting paint-flak from my
Hudson;
they retaliated with beer-bottle missiles

& the war was finally on
much to everyone’s delight

 

Mike Faran is the author of We Go To A Fire (Penury Press) and has appeared in Barbaric Yawp, Homestead Review, The New Laurel, Iodine, The Main Street Rag, and many others.