Journey Back to Canaan (for Jake St. John) by John Greiner

                        I

In New England

knee deep

in the whiskey

killing time; 

Jake's message

ends in 

the poem,

a recitative

for the song

that words fled.

Passing by

it adds up

to notes 

long gone

and an angel

broken on

the ground

who grasps

for a melody.

We never

heard that song

straight,

fresh.

The band wanted

to play on and on 

but was left to go 

dead on the turntable.

We suffer

the indignity

of that silence.

The kids are shushed

somewhere else

not knowing

the divorce to come

that will take them 

to the funhouse in rubble

where they will be able

to pick through 

the remains 

of nursery rhymes,

longing for the love 

of the cow 

who jumped

over the moon

and landed 

without applause.

The leap is simple.

There are few grand gestures

and even less noble ones.

Sweat drenched,

we lie awake listening

to the snores of hard 

won success at our side.

II

It's been raining all week.

The soaked run to the museum.

Central Park is devoid

of picnickers and sightseers. 

The tourists come in to see

all of the things that they don't

    want to see.

Snuff time, seek culture.

Bored on the benches they snore.

Snuff culture and just settle.

I stand around

a secondary character

in the eyes of third stringers

waiting to get away

and go home,

wanting to get a seat

on the subway train

that is always going nowhere fast.

III

Home.

I've made it

almost home.

The COPA

América Cup

is on all 

of the so many

television sets

in the bar

down the stairs

from the 

elevated

train, 

out here;

Queens,

Astoria,

home.

Home.

I've made it

almost 

Home.

The bar

is packed with

yellow jerseys,

the unrestrained

roar of the want

and triumph

of home.

Colombia scores.

This is 

for a moment

the somewhere else

come back to,

the place left

behind.

Home.

IV

By now,

In New England

Jake is drowning

in the whiskey

and time 

has been killed

in the city

where the submarines

are built 

to save America

from all the fish

that swim upstream.

The weather

has gotten funky

in this post-nuclear

apocalypse age.

So much has passed

without ever coming.

No one seems to give

a damn about what's next.

I'm knee deep

in the night,

in this city

where tomorrow

is drenched in

an anticipation

and anguish

no different

from today's.

Up there

in New England

Jake is in his wilderness

ready to wrestle

and be blessed

and dream of

the ladder

with the angels

going to and fro

while shutting out 

the sound

of all the snores

that rise up.

Here, 

in New York City

the Colombians

are living home.

I imagine New England

while looking

around at all the TVs.

V

We weren't around

for the song

that fled words.

We weren't around

to hear it straight

from the saxophonist

who wished

to become a saint

on the night

that he forgot

the mountain 

that he wanted

to climb.

We, like the long gone band,

have been left to go dead

on the turntable,

children lost

in the funhouse rubble,

divorced 

from 

mother,

father

and the dignity

of sound.

Qatar

loses

to Colombia

one - nil.

Far from home

the Colombians

celebrate

with Jamaican rum

and Mexican beer.

I pay the bill,

walk out

caught 

in the 

sound build

to song

that races

away

from

words.

John Greiner is a Pushcart Prize nominated writer living in Queens, NY. He was educated at the New School for Social Research.  Greiner's work has appeared in Sand, Empty Mirror, Sensitive Skin, Unarmed, Street Valueand numerous other magazines. His chapbooks, broadsides and collections of poetry and short stories includeTurnstile Burlesque (Crisis Chronicles Press, 2017), The Laundrymen(Wandering Head Press, 2016), Bodega Roses (Good Cop/Bad Cop Press, 2014),Modulation Age (Wandering Head Press, 2012), Shooting Side Glances(ISMs Press, 2011) and Relics From a Hell’s Kitchen Pawn Shop (Ronin Press, 2010).