(June 2023. Driving my blue bus from Mass to Texas, after stops at Vibecamp, DC, and the Blue Ridge Mountains around Asheville. I zoom through the south by a new route, and end up heading towards Clarksdale on advice from Kay. Clarksdale is where Blues legend Robert Johnson legendarily sold his soul to the Devil in order to become a great musician. I had stopped by the famous crossroads sign with a blue guitar, and I got the strangest feeling. It’s sort of a “Great American Novel” feeling, a feeling like I’m an actor being watched by the audience/narrator/director/God. And there, at the crossroads, I gave a whole monologue, out loud, to the Devil. It was a great speech, honest and confident and full of the holy spirit. I basically told the devil I didn’t need his help, that I was gonna become a great writer on my own without selling my soul, that I was gonna write the Great American Novel. I also got into a little theology, telling the Devil I empathized with him, that I felt for him, that I knew he must be necessary to God in one way or another, that in some way I was grateful for him. But I remained resolute there at the crossroads at midnight, declaring my allegiance to Christ and goodness in general in a manner that mixed Shakespearean soliloquy with humble small-town preacher. Then, I set off driving another hour towards an iOverlander spot right on the Mississippi River. The whole drive, I could see off ahead in the distance massive amounts of lightning to the west. I’m talking big, orange, humid, sky-lighting lightning, with terrible cracks of thunder accompanying. The whole hourlong drive I was heading straight towards the heart of the storm in the distance; the storm seemed to be heading southwest just as I was. When I got to the campsite for the night, right on the banks of the Mother River, I walked down to the shore with Waldo to watch the lightning on the other side of the river in Arkansas. It was flashing at one of the highest rates I’ve ever seen in my life; both quantity and quality of lightning was unlike anything I’d ever seen before. The only word for it was Biblical. I wrote this poem completely sober, yet somehow in a sort of religious altered state of consciousness. This poem may give you the impression that I’m a very religious person, but this sort of thing was somewhat out of character for me. Yet, it was also totally sincere; from the Devil’s Crossroads to the unbelievable lightning across the Mississippi, this night was one of the most genuinely religious experiences of my life.
lightning across the mississippi
across the mississippi spiderweb lightning
arcs in every direction, amber ribboning
electrocution of unrestrained heavens
moving westward, unrelenting flashes,
five every second, thunderless sparks
like a downed powerline flailing wildly—
orange snakes convulsing orgasmic last
in the clutches of god who bore the devil
of an excess of his own majesty,
potency i have never seen the likes of
thunderless the occasional spear thorlike
strikes fertile mud
i believe in arkansas,
the audacity of ahab in the face of flame
gripping the anchors of this heavy world
conducting the lord of fire in defiance
of man’s mortality, holding for a moment
krishna unveiled, nuclear awe overflowing
any container smaller than the world as if
the grounding of earth were insufficient,
crackling electricity fanning out branches
horizontal and even upwards as though
there were a lightning rod in deep space
siphoning this world’s desire to another—
dark clouds wear the crowned knot of fire,
effervescent coronet of thorns bleeding
golden around the cloudy brow of a christ
dripping yellow electric chrism a cross
the newly borne american continent
Beatin' Paths ~~~ The journey to the Great American Novel 