On the edge of town lies another town,
and beyond that, another. You lean
against a wood fence, watching invisible
wind move across untamed fields of
green that have begun to brown. It is
November and cold. Things are living
and dying. You think back, eleven or
more years ago, when, for twenty-eight
days, your punk band toured across the
country in a run-down green ’98 Chevy
conversion van that was purchased for
$1200 and came with two seats in the
front, a cigarette burned couch in the
back, no seatbelts, and a suicide knob.
You think about the long drives before
the shows, passing through towns and
cities with names you can’t remember,
across highways you can’t recall,
through states that you never stopped in,
and places that never knew you were
there. Long days of endless driving to
play fifteen minute sets in crowded
basements, dark bars, beige living rooms,
moldy garages, anywhere with electricity.
And when the tour ended, and the van
broke down, you had it towed to outside
your house to serve as a reminder of the
feats you accomplished and the memories
made. But tonight, eleven or more years
later, leaning against this wood fence,
you think of the nights after the van died,
after the band died, after the fun died.
Those cold November nights when you
and your friends spent in the van, huddled
together under blankets and sleeping bags
for warmth, drinking Heaven Hill Whiskey
and smoking pot, like a lost tribe of
shamans, exiled to die in New Jersey.
And tonight, these memories, like leaves,
are few and far between, little to none
remain. And it is cold, so very, very cold.
Tohm Bakelas is a social worker in a psychiatric hospital. He was born in New Jersey, resides there, and will die there. He is the author of several collections of poetry, including “Cleaning the Gutters of Hell (Zeitgeist Press, 2023) and “The Ants Crawl in Circles” (Bone Machine, Inc., 2024).
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THE CITY KEY 