Known Ghosts Not Quite Yet

I am about, uhm, seventy-seven percent done with book six of song lyrics/poems. Today I wrote the introduction for it and ahhh here it is:

Greetings. Welcome to this third world airline known as another of my song lyric/poetry books. We had five planes, this is the sixth. Yeah, Paco is drunk, but I’m pretty sure he knows what he’s doing with that wrench. He’s got eleven kids but never figured out how to milk a goat so he became a mechanic. Sadly he’s not an editor or this book would be a lot more coherent. Paco…I guess he’s just a figment of my inebriation. Oh, I see you reaching for your seatbelt or maybe the handle to the exit door—

You want to live forever? Hold on, I’ll turn on the news. Have another drink, I’ll put on some yacht rock and we can get all misty about a more innocent time when Michael McDonald crooned like a sad dog left in the rain. Who am I? I am Ishmel. I am a security guard. I am a skilled writer and mediocre human being. I am a criminal or simply a saint out of practice. I am your vehicle, baby, I’d take you anywhere you want to go but the lust in your eyes is for that younger man with the aura of Axe body spray and sideways cap or that not too much younger man with the expensive cologne, sweater around the shoulders, and grown up career. He’s got an electric SUV and a personality that lacks a charge. I sleep on the floor and never eat toast. I was in a bar reading about the Edwardians when the snake oil salesman hefted his fat ass back on the throne but enough about Don Knotts and his fear of long docks. What you need isn’t love or security or understanding of this crazy world and your place in it, what you need is a book with words in it and here it is.

Hey, I never wanted to grow up but someone had to balance the checkbook. I wanted to be a robber baron but, man, my tailor never quite got it right.

Thank you for being here, in the winter of our discotheque. The 21st century is robbing the liquor store in my soul.

—IDD