| Russo-Portuguese monickered Ivan Arguelles |
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| by Andrei Codrescu |
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(“hip”)
Señor Blues is what they call him, way down Mexicali way
no day is as remote as this one nothing on the spectrum but white lies a continent upside down and reversed biosphere immersed in dispersed ash no day more remote than this one telephone memory of the day it happened the crash on the unexpected road the glass breaking in the infinite gyre the sudden onslaught of fever and madness inches away from the entrance to hell the big shot of gasoline and fine perfume Well he’s tall and good lookin’ and always knows what to say no hour more isolated than this one putting on the finery to strut all “hip” in marijuana fashion show with mirrors cut of the cloth all bright red and stamped buttoned to the nines in black ivory smoking one big joint of colombian gold after another jazz hyphenated soul Baby and the next thing you know BANG he’s in the emergency room nothing left to do but hang it out to die hang it out to die no minute more distant than this one it’s not just that he was born that way he was dead that way from the start no year too rapid no time cycle too swift all brilliance and flash way too “cool” hummingbird alliteration of thought tripping through Ouspensky’s fourth way with mojo hand and little John the conqueroo no instant more remote than this very one when the universe in a zip-lock bag disappears in a child’s blind-man’s bluff what’s all that racket upstairs who let the wind out of the sack who picked all the dandelions who mowed all the summer lawns who delivered the papers today who let Pandora open the box Well he’s tall and good lookin’ and always knows what to say Ulysses going home the long sea route never know when he’s gonna make it lay with Nausicaa and Circe hot august noon stayed up all night to count the stars climbed the aerial stairway to Nirvana just when Mind altered its dimensions no now more far off than this now nickel bag reefer madness cinema moving faster than the speed of sound now you see him now you don’t shadow walking in the mansions of the moon shadow talking to the chicks along the way mows ‘em down with his smooth jive shifting with all the moves of a jazz solo honking vibrating finger popping bright this is once in a lifetime this is really once in a lifetime but now there is no now left to play however remote this very day however distant this very moment
and the next thing you know BANG he’s in the emergency room nothing left to do but hang it out to die hang it out to die
By the time that they love him, Señor Blues done gone away
03-22-14
*Footnote: the world remembers my twin brother as “Mayan” Prophet Valum Votan. I really never got to know the Prophet. To me he was is and always has been Joe or José, quite simply. In the days of our coming of age he became hip, a hipster, cool, Man, a transformation as apparently easy as it was painful, because it required shedding many skins, evolving through Huxley’s Doors of Perception into the New Age Star, the Harmonic Converger, & finally Valum Votan. On the eve of the 3rd anniversary of his Death I remember him today as “hip”, the Mexican kid who became “way too cool”, distance itself.
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