The Ghost Boatman

Busker’s memoir

On the road psichedelic
by Federico Berti

Shining embers eyes  squirt  all around the night as fire tentacles, fog’s  light  blazes turn back and  I cross the shadow like a human torch, grasping  the broken oar of uselessly gear-change machine. Can’t  break the circle,  twelve hour music whippin’ my mind, playing imaginary strings. Drummin’ fingers on the steering wheel: can’t find silence inside, can’t look for harmony outside… Shake radio channels trying to overhang rolling up sounds interweaving my head as eels in the fisherman’s bucket. Oh yes I mean, can’t stay. Where? Fog winds out a dark world  in  moonless night, swinging curves pendulum hypnotize me. Almost  feel dozens glances on my neck,  who’s that young man  driving nowhere?  Can’t park this tiny road-shuttle, got no place to plane so I keep on drivin’. Where car’s headlights know Morse code, you better get as far as you can! On the other hand, could I slip out of a whale belly downtown, bleary eye and rough beard, people walking and suspiciously catching sight of my pitfull face. Where? When? The eyes converge tryin’ not to fall asleep and I still can’t stop the wagon, forced to drive and drive more around, like a sharp teethed shark swimmin’ underworld… It’s not freedom, actually! Need to learn something about who lives here and there, so I bowe my head reading or drawing some doodle onto mouth- cleaner sheets in wineries,  my ears grabbin’ shreds, greetings, neighborhood stories. Palaces, shops, infrastructure… When outside, I look up to the sky and scrabble imaginary lines between the stars, asking ​​how the sun will turn tomorrow: because winter morning first daily rays have to melt the ice on my car glasses, because hot summer sunrise hope not fires up my dreams! How the moon will turn, ‘cause you better not piss on your shoes in the heart of a gloomy Saturday night! Where’s the water spring, where are shops, services… I catch  noises to find safe zone, peacefull quarters, I learn who lives here and how people is dressed, what about language. Have to know the land sailing through, so when feel acquainted a piece of garden don’t think twice, willingly come back over that bush, there is still a part of you beneath the ground! New bonds, neighbors, bartenders, milkmen, news-criers, policemen, priests, nuns, whores… You well know them one by one, they know and wait you to come back. Can get rid of anything, but you’ll never undress your soul.

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