I wanna talk to you a little bit about the Jersey colors
They come oozing
out of the liquid atmosphere swirling
clinging to the fronts of the buildings
in the early morning
like the thick mist in the seven mile beach swamps
immense intense and totally without sense.
In the spring they howl in orbit
around your head in full regalia
in the fall they turn and descend
in a last-gasp bacchanalia
in the summer and winter they lie dormant
propelled into position
by power chord transition
waiting as by tradition
for the equinox’s punch.
The greens and blues
they come in two by twos
the pinks reds and violets
break majority’s silence
and the yellows they find you
they sneak up behind you
then burst in your face and blind you
with a sunglare schizophrenia.
On the heights by the seaside
they bombard you relentlessly
cresting and pointing
in garish miscellany
to the tune of cacophony
multiplying millennially
fueled hormonally
in sunbeaten libidinous
hysteria.
In the eroded splendor
of more northerly havens
they sedately glide
in muted cadence
like the beach poets’ voices
in resigned complacence
whispering from between
the boardwalk cracks.
Sometimes they haunt the sky
over the ornate peninsula they fly
sometimes in the summer they rise
recharged, engaged, and energized
in brilliant pink refractions
psychedelic reactions
and opposite attractions
between breaks in the suburban camouflage.
But on every clear day
you can see them dawning
into the inverted arena vaulting
twisting, turning, and somersaulting
with a force so vivid and undeniable.
And with the onset
of ethereal evenings
when they’ve completed their carousing
cavorting and careening
they slip out of the exhausted stratosphere
and as lightning to the ground
they find their way down
to the last of the towns
where bygone senses of amusement and merriment
remain and still reign.
Caged in glass and empowered by neon
they whirl and suspend
in centrifugal madness
bouncing back from placid surfaces
they twirl and blend
in splendor and grandness
Roaring and deafening
enticing and menacing
seductive and beckoning
to all who dare:
Approach and then enter
suck the flames from the embers
be engulfed, then surrender
abandon your cares
Don’t ask or inquire
give in to desire
with the multihued fire
you will become one
But strap in and squeeze tight
and stay in the fight
you’ll be spun out in the night
fulfilled and lacking for none.
©2023 The Hesh Inc.
This lyric is a poem inspired by the views I took in when exploring the Jersey Shore immediately after moving there in 1990: an early sunrise over Deal Lake, peeking through the trees of leafy Interlaken; the kaleidoscopic explosion of merchandise in the various boardwalk shops; the interior rivers, like the Mullica and Cheesequake, winding through high reeds and marshes; the Ocean Drive meandering among the back bays and southern shore towns; the sunset at Sunset Beach near Cape May Point; and the whirling neon of amusement park rides at night. The music is a bluesy, psychedelic mashup of the Doors' "Texas Radio," Whitesnake's "Love Man," and Roy Buchanan's "I'm A Ram." If it doesn't make sense, it will when I finally record it for one of my subsequent Soul In Exile excursions.
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