A Good-Bye, Before The Next Hello

Today's the first day of flowers and figs,

of Brazilian Pepper Trees scrawny

not big, and of scrubbing old floors

down on both aching knees,

(but happily not my good luck),

my sore back drugged like a junkie

who lives in the alley out there, it's

here in this empty apartment that I'm

stoned on ibuprofen galore,

I've walked and I've sat on this old hardwood

and tile reading books of poems and art,

now and again a political tome, stared at

the computer screen for too long a while,

it's here I've penned much of my own poetic

lines, whose feelings and words whispered

freedom and fullness like nothing else has,

and what's true for sure is that this floor

stuck thick with three years of greasy

grime waits my attention this morn as I

clench my cracked knuckles and jaw full

of joy, green sponge laden with Ajax and

Comet and Mr.Clean

(Donner and Blixen seem to have flown

this scene, as quite soon I shall as well),

and it's all happening, thank God, in 3/4 time!

?

Is Melba toast,

have you lost

your neighbor

yet, you know

the lusty waif

next door who

moaned scary

and turned poor

Ray half crazy,

as you elbow

and grin big

on your way

home to the

green hilltop

street of the

most spacious

song ('El Canto')

where there's

more room,

more beauty

for lazing

and loving

on longer

afternoons

and what's best,

lots of ground

to plant a tree

or three down

deep into ?

Flag Day

She knew, oh my, just how

and where to touch his fancy,

you know, that worldly place

not secret--oft unspoken--right

there inside where a real girl

gets her guy unfurled, but good.

Ithaca

to simply sit

in pure silence

is not often

easy nor

instantly

pleasing

to become diffuse

purplish tint

from one

broken blue

berry oozing

on new

fallen snow

and for just

a small

spare

moment

if the soft

descending

lacework of

grace enters

this empty

bare room

you may slip

from the

addictive

bonds

of your

stooped

tired self

and become

no one at all

with nothing

to tell, no

branded

goods to

market

or sell

and then

know down

in your bones

the comfort

the freedom

of having

finally landed,

of being

truly at

home.

NEW(D) NEIGHBOR

The red haired burlesque queen is my new neighbor,

yes, she has six or seven cats and wears weird

Turkish hats

but oh god I do love how she wiggles and waves the freedom flag of her half hidden bod,

her undraped silky curvaceous skin while waiting on top of our stoop at day’s rain slicked rear end for her lucky son of a bitch short stub of a hubby,

that quiet bald runt drives a lifted black truck and

gets a testosterone boost, but I betcha’ not much or

enough, while she drives me nuttier than nuts with

the pluck and the suck of those cute fluffy pink lips,

they’re plumper by far than that simpering movie star

Angelina Jolie.

Please don’t tell him with no hair how his wife’s white

swervy flesh and twirling wild teats over there (and there too)

dizzy me crazy and dazed, I feel drunker than a brand new

unfrocked uncelibate monk enthralled and in tune with

the sweet smiling sliver of a lusty red moon,

to tell ya’ the truth, I tell the boys at the shop she has Catholic

school beat, when I gawk and gaze at her unclothed complete

my faith grows by bounds and gigantic leaps, SHE is such a

god damn treat, an answer to pubescent prayers, yes the new gal

upstairs could quickly become, praise the lord one floor up above

(and take out your gum),

let’s just enter her lair, unlock the back door

of Miss Rubescent Love, my fan dangling

big hearted bare savior who's given my tickled

flesh and its' somersault mind one big
loving shove!

Snow Berries

a sprinkle of purplish

berries rests on a

white crust of snow

outside your gleaming

front room window,

inside the heart of

this big house

the heater heats

and the tv speaks

assorted babel to

our warm and

hopeful ears,

and yet, I can’t wait

to traipse up these

several stairs where

we’ll tuck and be

tucked in, and

under, the softest

thickest quilt Grand/

ma ever built

to doze deep snooze

long burrow easy

like shining cozy

berries reflecting

winter light.

COLD DAZE

there are days when the light

fades so early and I feel un/

washed, high heaped as old

piled clothing, days so cold

that stained snow cannot stick

around and my frigid multitude

of wild mistakes make wet hay

toss and shiver like gold dross

on once safe low altitude

frostbitten ground.

While watching a mediocre scary movie on Netlix...

….the neighbor girl rumbles and groans through a thin wall

of semi-separation seeking sleep or a quick orgasm, while

a train miles away moans on and on and on,

it trumpets its solipsistic energies like a lonely virgin or shaggy

bleating mountain goat, lost and wandering in the rain flooded

formidable night, this day was made only of water and now in

darkness all roads are impassable, pavement became streams,

each road a flowing avenue of real wet dreams and my neighbor girl,

no strumpet tonight, finds sleep and sex sadly impossible, she gives

up, stands to stretch, staggers to her tiny kitchen, makes weak cocoa

in a white China cup, opens wider her dry eyes then sits at her laptop

to wander, ignores the sweet possibility of mystery of wonder and she

wastes herself again.

the rain saturates everything now, trees shoes ambitions memory, like

a strange illness, like greed or gluttony or righteousness, and the sallow

man in a dark coat, hatless, no sleep for days, coughs and stares straight

through my front door screen as if it were not there, as if he were not lost.

ONE NIGHT

the sparkling moon

bleeds flowers of

plenty into a

meandering

night,

drops of red

soak and

cleanse

ancient stars

in dark pots

of silence,

you scurry

to catch a

glimpse of

father fate

in time’s

brisk

brown

hands,

then with that

grin I love,

carve your

name in the

swinging gate

of the bluest

galaxy

where it curves

and shimmers

like crimson

clay next

to mine.

the going of Millie

Yes, my attentive friends, Millicent went

quite and suddenly nuts, she cracked up

on a windy night high flying in a wet red

airborne tent,

while earthbound Alfred of a misspent

desultory middle age, sky gazed paced

sweated salt streams of repressed rage.

Yet, all along he feared his darling betrothed,

sweet distracted bewigged Hortense, the

pudding cream of prudish has beens,

had not in truth paid one Honest Abe dead

head cent (or flimsy farthing for that matter)

towards their fucking late inflated rent.

la luna

the lush ripe

fullest moon

issues forth

golden shining

newborns

from its vast

skyblack

queen size

bed.

Decision-Making

When my driver’s license
expired I drove to the post
office, applied in a hurry
for a new passport,

when my third wife left in
a scurry with the bald squat
neighbor at midnight I bought
a clawfoot bathtub, soaked
until prune skinned,

and when you gobbled my
slathered in gravy guinea
pig at Thanksgiving dinner
I sang with a big grin
“hallelujah! hallelujah!"

'scream

oh what I’d do for a true treat tonight, a bowl
heaping of paradise so sweet, sure as gelato is
not jello we do love our ice cream,

I’d run nude down the skinny black alley in
chilly night air, sing rowdy Autumn songs from
the thick depths of my long-hungry lungs, lift

you tottering in pure lusty triumph above the
chintzy 7-11 sign flashing while fire engines
across 25th start their wake up the dowdy
neighbors to scream in raucous language of siren,

then with frosty brown bag in cold hands we'd
skip down the sidewalk in late darkness towards
twin spoons of well-used cool silver which
nuzzle pillows of sticky caramel and hot
tempting rivers of soft lava fudge,

now, such plenty awaits our pink greedy
tongues, ready mouths water and smile
in feigned patience as you grinning shout
'go' and finally I dish up this treasure, as
we in full gladness thank the fat dessert gods
winking below.

hearing water

Streaming forth
from the center

of the center

of the center

is a clear
clean
spring

of spacious
silence,

it shimmers
in whispers.

Remember
to enter.

LISTEN

the day bumps
open, burps out
its simple name

but the wind,
the wind
is fresh

blows wild
and clean

in light so soft
and ample
it whispers

shhhhh….

Northwest November

long blessed days of bleated wintry rain:

saturate these plotted clods of soil,
rushing rivulets breach the old city’s
crumbling outer wall

as we stealthily take two pots of
Asian tea with our stale smokes and
swing out like happy apes onto the

glistening mossy porch to gaze
and laze within the whispering
wet, far flung meandering day.

FRISCO DUSK

The Friday evening drizzle,
such a soft misty tickler,

soaks pink thirsty tongues
and tan topcoats quickly,

as the long-drawn weary
work week's frazzle
wobbles and limps
without a whimper

then swiftly, us it licks,
while the day in drips

dropping, thankfully,

flickers.

plunk

plunk down

silence on
the park
bench

silence swells
leaves
thoughts

drifty still

breeze wells
eases under
desire

you might
settle

camp here
until for/
ever

ignites at
last

one blaze,

Silence's
final
fire.

now,light

now light leaves

the day behind

while the faint

smell of tobacco

lingers in this room

BENCH

the park bench beckons
tired bodies with stiff
sore shoulders

asks us to sit still in
dallying silence

and enjoy this spacious
simple time,

as we ease into a welcoming
of pleasure’s whispers

where the golden meadow
dances its daily magic

and towards us both
a smidgen of rarest light

like a poem fragment
found by chance in rain

delights and soothes the
gleaming once hidden
heart inside!

On the Road to Arroyo Grande

listen to the space within this silence
which lies underneath the high green
dome across the blooming field, it rises
out of the flatland like a prophet or an elder

and knows things we all need to know to
live and die and traverse the wooden bridge
which spans the flowing waters far far below,

as we traipse and gleam, shaking in its sway.

SEASON

The October night sank like an old masculine sun
under the leafy new season it did dissolve into dust

while a wrinkled up woman in a tattered wool shawl
wrote love letters, mailed one by one into the shrill wind

and as the ancient birch porch creaked in the dark
she cleared her thin throat for the last time,

stood high on the warped boards in the thick
Autumn cold where her twin girls had stored
sugary treats decades ago.

She raised her bony tired red hands and as
strong as the full moon shining bright and so
long down onto Blue Pond

spoke her true simple words which
in the end were her heart's mind.

I guess you could say before her
brown eyes closed for good she

had dined slow and chewed well
at this lush feast of life

which to my open, half broken ears
did say it all.

LILTING

tight was the twist of the tin screw on maple
light was the tilt of the dappled sun’s shaft

green were the trees above grass stained knees all afield
brave was the lilt of their slow traipse towards the grave

tuneful is the soul moan of bagpipes' meander a'mourning
deep blue is the heart bruised of my tearful young son

wabena

Fat Wabena bought the stereo quick on credit
or so it seemed by her wry quarter smile as boxes
of gizmos were lifted by pimpled teens onto carts
and pushed out through dense rain to her half
rusted auto,

when the kids left, she set it down in an oily puddle
where cigarette butts floated like dead submarines
next to her bottle of discount gin in the gray parking lot.

She let the pigeons and gulls and water have their way
with her purchase as it drowned in the dim light,

and took a long swig of the juice, fire inflamed her throat
like a shopping spree gone utterly mad and her dimples,
they crimsoned, opened and fluttered like wings of
angelic desire as the booze, thank god, did its job.

Her sad head began to bob in the downpour as,
numb now, she sobbed and coherently muttered
of old music and long gone absentee gods.

CRESTFALLEN CAVITY OF DEPRAVITY

The Croatian oracle quacked and screamed above the shattered cracked plate glass screens,
her predictive capacities stunk like crap or two week old canapes from
congested Cairo's alleys way out back,

considering her barbaric charisma and such lack of tact, I ask you in complete confidence --
what's worse than that?

That's right, an empty tube of Crest in Dubrovnik with unclean acres of dental plaque.

CROONER

the lanky black clad stranger sang scat like a sainted jazzman or a traveling angel,

his somber vibrating lips create oceans of bliss for eager quiet listeners all over this planet,

as stars in the great night gleam radiant light across ages of time his

uplifting music graces astonished others with a sensuous trinity of scents:

an eternal Springtime blooms in wild loving profusion of rose, saffron and lime.

ODE TO THE CURRENT

carried away I was, and am
by the river turning tightly
just downstream from the red
rusted bridge with steel trusses,

oh how the steam rises like smoke
from wood fires in the yellow glare
of noon’s torrid lusty sun

and far below on this cool thin back
of blue liquid silk float ducks and geese,
acres of forgotten garbage and stink

mixed with the half-lived dreams of
blinking old men who stare into the past,
stifle their regrets as it forward flows
slowly away

across fields and foothills where lanky
aspens of gold dance such a delicate
and bold quiver and sway.

Sunday, Early (for Jevan)

mist coats the streets of our town

sweetens and softens this easy
slow morning

pleases like a sweater of finest
cashmere or burnished cane of
Cuban sugar.

Poet's Block

Words clunk inside dry chunks of uninspired stones tonight.

No moonlight gleams warm image streams or blue green
dream onto my blocked and barren thoughts.

I sit displaced with feet that chafe and burn
on a floor of silent scorn

as fingers tap these rocks for what it’s worth,
or not, they’re so far away from thee

at this dead-end cul-de-sac, this unfertile geology.

....Still, a train’s plangent whistle sings low and long
in smokey rain,

(can you hear it softly whimper a sculpted anomie?)

as it lulls our Friday townsfolk, one of whom is me,
unto their whispered sleep.

Warning Final

LISTEN UP!

the maybe date is wrong
but ain’t my meaning
if drift you my get

and if you good what’s
know you for you won’t
question more ask any

or forced, I’ll myself
to be and you like that
sure won’t.

AUTUMN PRAYER (for Emilia Rae)

In these burnished days of first fall
before bare trees and slate gray skies
of winter come to call

may the blue flower of your heart’s
deep core bloom and shine through
each cell and sinew

fill the humble and grand rooms
of your life with sweet fragrance,
true beauty and friendship’s joy
forevermore.

first mistake

My first mistake was not shaving for one week while grampa
that toady deviant scoundrel ate all our crunchy peanut butter
on day old crust-less toast of the finest holy wheat.

Down the labyrinthian halls of this misfit mansion, Aunt Beebe
with her girlish giggle played dominoes alone, chugged warm
wine until slurringly giddy, completely unmistakenly stoned,

despite the inebriated state of her wild-ass mind, she sliced and
stabbed red potatoes into dinky midget chunks, twisted green
beans into divine spirals fit for cherubim and heathens both

while fiddling and fidgeting in between with the plump uneaten
Sunday roast.

I Wanna'..

..samadhi your body

while you dally with red/
headed cousin sally

or foreplay my satori.

We’ll frolic full
moon style,
tumble down

down
down
down

tarry awhile then dive deep
under ticky-tack town-houses
piled like puddled rain

along our mundane lane

into the verdant welcoming
depths of her wetness,

the complete zero sum
game of innocence
and shame

where deer leap, frogs gurgle,
finches sing, stand

balanced on stub ends
of slender eucalyptus
limbs,

their fine sky swirls clouds
painted purple over

her enlightened
brown valley.

I wanna' samadhi your body.

Couldya' foreplay my satori?

ON THE TABLE

ginger’s zing
pierces pear’s
sweet cream

garlic’s bite
snaps grape’s
tart green

basil’s
sum/
mery
pungent
flavor

adds to
kitchen’s
savory
fragrance

earth’s
beauty
and
bounty
in cobalt
bowls

fill our
brimming
happy
bellys

grace
this
wobbly
old
wooden
table

a grateful
cook
grins
and
swallows

(ambles
slow
as
sticky
syrup
of
amber
maple)

licks
his
slippery
eager
lips

and
chomps
through
thin
crimson
skin

from
early
Fall’s
fat
tempting
first born
child--

Oh Man!
that thirst
quenching
juice-filled
crunch
of crisp
staunch
apple.

On the Table

Ginger’s zing
pierces pear’s
sweet cream

garlic’s bite
snaps grape’s
tart green

basil’s
summer
flavor
brightens
kitchen’s
savor.

Earth’s
beauty
and
bounty
fills
our
bellys

graces
this
old
wooden
table.

Grateful
cook
grins
and
swallows

(slow
as
sticky
syrup
of
maple)

licks
his
slippery
lips
and

chomps
into
one
tempting
crisp
red
apple!

pencils talk shop to fiery rap music in
this square classroom of oldster losers

while fallen angels shed their wings,
stumble like blacked-out drunks
on shrouded streets,

elegiac symbols smash and clang in way/
ward alleys, whistling in wind tunnels
we shred all logic,

and move our sullen hips and swollen feet
to a humid enticing Brazilian beat

in a torrid double-cross of ends and means,

you may well wonder when life’s looking
too close and a hell of a mess at three a.m.,

and you’re tangled up good over, in and
under those horrid unwashed sheets,

must we bumble along from stem to stern
as bees on the buzz or crooks on the lam

just to make some honey or a wad of money
in our one last sweet shot to feel complete?

big fish and friend

The big fish waits
and waits
and waits.

I see his glisten
through the shine
and depth of wet

and think
and think
and think.

We both want
to flow and
float with
ease

in morning's
warm sun/
shine.

Yet the fish
and fish/
erman sit
and sit
and sit

in such
patient
reverie

at these
opalescent
liquid gates.

Red Salt

My vagrant ways became annoying,
desultory were the holy socks
the grumble stomach,

until one day a plumped up dumpster
with flies and fleas circling round,
whispered my baptismal name in
metal letters,

told how blood is salted,
streams in dark through
cells while caressing,

speaks in hushed tones
rushes and trills,

a sacrament red and
wildly painted
washes us clean into
human sainthood,

fills high and low and what’s in
between with invisible scripture
writ sacred from glorious trees
and our full life story.

Since that message tin cans sparkle,
each new season and every alley

fountains of light and lovely folly.

ALGIERS IN AUTUMN

“Sojourn with me
to Algiers”,
she entreated at
the museum of light.

Its astonishing layers
and ivory walls reveal
histories of mystics,
colonial plunder and fight,

they meander like snakes in
the dust over miles for days

are white as cow’s milk
or children’s first teeth

and the heat, how it blazes
pours down like hot caramel
on narrow alleyways

in a sweet golden scorch
from cerulean skies,

we’ll pray word/
lessly at noon
on our eager
four knees

in magnificent
mosques bathed
in silken
Mediterrranean
breeze

make love
all night
soaked in
oil of myrhh
on thick
tapestries

dally in the cool
moonlight
of a perfumed
room.

How could I not awaken at once,
begin to pack cotton socks,
that cherished book of Rumi poems
to unbury those bright emeralds of song,

commence this longed for pilgrimage
of lushness, the very second
“sojourn with me to Algiers”,
she seductively crooned?

Home Coming

Our bodies are homes
where dreaming resides.

Oh, how in good times
and hard these bodies are
our first homes and our
myriad stories their lush
verdant back yard.

When we bide our bodies
with a light touch and care
we honor our homes, know
in our guts that we do
live there.

In a drunk Mexican town
under the volcan’s haze
or a vibrating street in
a big East coast city,

our muscles and sinews
sing of home and the yearn
for a friend who takes us in
in all weather through
their open front door.

Whether rich or poor, in ill
health or not, he offers cups
of warm tea fragrant
with cinnamon and clove,

listens closely as we tell
our real story of desires
that burn and secrets
unclothed,

show simply our nakedness
this wavering and fear,

how we battled our aches
stomached deep doubts
year after year,

then with some luck,
shimmer and glisten,
we both settle in chairs
of plum colored softness

watch the night stars
turn slowly while long
travels liquefy,

we smile and sigh fully
feel close to the earth,

there’s now birthed
a surplus of ease as
we know in our bones
strongly,

true home and high
treeful dreaming
may finally
be nigh.

dance lesson

the real reason people stop dancing at night alone in downtown lofts
and cozy wooden houses with azaleas in front yards tucked back on slow roads
is not that they can’t glide like stars in the black canopy above or have been
given at birth two left feet in tortuous shoes which pinch and contort

but they don’t stand up, unkink knots of tightness and dance to soft soothing
silence or to music which trembles the heart and shakes crazy their floor when
day is finally slow and all is easeful so quiet,

(to me it’s the damnedest, one of the saddest things),

they’re afraid to open into their god-given bodies,
let go of smallness towards the great nothing
and with full unthinking relish, relax like a child
and laugh into love!

EFFICACY

Jake’s proclamation to the beauteous
Contessa of the court was efficacious
and scandalous, his red rimmed cheeks
burned like a bedroom of crimson coals
and she blushed a pink prettier than any
Aurora Borealis in their torrid time
of volcanic heat,

as their thirst was slaked
they burst open sated
in molten
complexity.

Why File Bankruptcy

unavoidable debt piled up on her front porch steps
like months and months of unread soggy newspapers,

sapped her strength, bogged her hopeful mind,
and raped her will to do what she must
and could to beat the odds,

to ride in high style the crazy wild foaming surf
through capitalism’s thickest banks of fog
to her true home secure and warm,

her emerald palace deep within lofty trees
of red and green amongst the friendly gods!

for HEIDI--2

May your Autumn Harvest fill all your bushels
with ease, a surplus of fruitful wonders to de/

lightfully please your lovely soft feet
and those double sweet knees

as you hike up your hills and penetrate each valley,
may the grace of ten saints rest on your lap,
uplift your spirits and whisper tall tales

as you silently nap in your hammock between
those grinning mischievous twins christened
surplus and ease

who deliciously swing sway you half-daft
in the waft of a breeze….

for HEIDI

for HEIDI

May your Autumn Harvest fill all your bushels
with ease, a surplus of fruitful wonders to de/
lightfully please your lovely soft feet
and those double sweet knees

as you hike up your hills and penetrate each valley,
may the grace of ten saints rest on your lap,
uplift your spirits and whisper tall tales
as you silently nap in your hammock with
hair blowing mischievous twins christened
surplus and ease

and deliciously swing sway in the waft of a breeze….

field of dreams

a bloated belly rises from the diamond
of his body like a pitcher’s mound at dusk,

the game begins again:
one resin bag in dirt
and a pair of steel cleats
scratch their workday marks
on his baseball skin

eight thousand fans lounge alert
in bleachers built of wood
from miles and miles away

chug cold beers and cheer,
watch the show unfold

roar, boo and bellow
approval and disdain

with every pitch, belly
laugh and belch
as he lazes in
stadium's midst
soothed radiant
by the breeze,

enjoys untold innings
curl pleasing
unpredictably
into one another

(so full and slow-
going these
spherical
afternoons
of curve)

he's warmed by
Autumn’s
dervish sun
in his chubby
golden Buddha
days

plays the teasing
maverick
asleep or awake
with graceful
twists and turns

and a smiling
gut-first sliding

sure athletic
ease.

The Misanthrope Laments

Unwild childless women strap up after work to walk their puissant
yapping dogs round and round and round the goddamn boring block,

gulp down quickly as prescribed by their tick tock tick-tock clocks
dry thin rye-krisp crackers with white pots of lukewarm tea for
desultory dinners just enough to keep alive at gruesome tables
where guests are rarely seated,

they later sit starched prim in pews of peeling pressed-board
inside churches of no name, pretend to worship any bland mute
and balding faggot gods who remain to bully, conquer fully
the faith-fooled dressed-up vain..

Unbeguiled tired husbands stagger and march weak-kneed
in saggy under/pants toward tiled family toilets in some sort
of weird inhuman trance,

athletes’ feet pad across Berber carpets like Bedouins on sand
as these men vacillate, grouse and rant about sour low-fat cows’
milk spilled on expensive hand-carved couches..

The moral of this poem, the story behind this song, leads one
such as you to think through well (do tell) what the hell
has gone wrong?

A Plea for Surcease

Can you help me find a cure for my myriad
allergies, please? You see junk mail makes
me nuts, fills my nose with phlegm so thick
and full of gunk I can't think, forget what
my girlfriend's rich breath smells like,

it used to remind me of the scent
of that fun color-- pink.

Hives burst from my splotched up face
like ripe berries or volcanoes on the make
and man they itch so bad--
it's like a bus on crack trashed my old man's
drought tolerant front yard, overran his pad.

Can't you see, it's hard to stop the mail,
every day he brings me more, it's a living
fucking jail,

but with your aid this time maybe I won't fail
to breathe deep, sleep straight through
the silent night again.


Send your checks or cash by US Mail
to P.Lautz c/o SD County Jail
and you shall be wrapped within
my prayers for nearly as many years
as this cure and your kind sure acts
prevail and my hard won health persists,

(in this, a loving dovetail of dermatological release)

ps--each day when awakened by the postman's steps and stumbles,
I thank god my jailhouse bunkmate is a stone blind deaf dumb bumbler
and junk mail ain't yet printed up in braille or downloaded onto ipods
for the sightless hearing impaired ones.

Take Your Stand

Stand firm on thick sand or even
when at odds sick with pain

in sun and rain be chest open
quick to quiet and the late
shifting hemlock leaves


breath deep and easy so the scent
is noted in those pores and nostrils
of each amongst these greenish trees

pink and soft, it’s our last chance
for earthy life to lift aloft,
I implore you

it’s now forever,
please.

MUST THE MAIL ALWAYS GO THRU?

I’m allergic to junk mail.

My chiropractor prescribed calcium capsules
and a disappeared mailbox,

he proclaimed at our last consultation:
“purchase a one way ticket to Canada by canoe,
you will feel a certain relief, a quickening in your
cardio-sternum as the box floats away”,
as his well researched treatment protocol.

Night after night I trudge upstairs and carry inside
my casa umpteen petitions to save the caribou in Alaska
and those sixteen wolves in Yellowstone,
compulsive outcries, these crazed repetitive pleas
from the local public broadcaster for my annual cash
(why can’t they cease and desist, find another career?)

and thick wads of unruly paper stinking my fingers
with cheap printer’s ink exhorting my consumer self
to let the inner addict out into the holy marketplace of Geico
and the local pizza joint and save some bucks by spending more
on cannolis, car insurance, and let’s not forget to use
those little coupons for reduced price car washes,

my poor itchy skin commences to look like crimson
lunar pockmarks or Cancun twitching after a 6.6 earthquake
creased the tropical city into fiery folds of broken ground,

not a single chiropractor in sight and all the mailmen have
crammed their kids into cars to caravan towards Quebec,
they heave and careen around curves heading north
as I scratch and scratch, smear hydrocortisone cream across
acres of derma and read the latest news,

oh god or goddess of junk mail will you ever hear my calls?
I am down on my last plucky swollen scabby knees,
I’ve rid myself of mailboxes and fired the quack I’d hired,
it’s my turn for some good luck,
won’t you listen, please!

traces

Trace the reclining arm back to its strong shy author,

give bulbs and beetroot to stickball kids with mitts
who sit to catch their breath on the little stoop,

tell no one of your sadness or your glory
for time rolls sure and slow over each
and every morning,

then when the lunar breeze blows inward
from the canyon,
feed friend and foe together at the long birch table,

the final feast is placed in bowls and brimful platters,
and if the rain is lucky, we’ll forever be there smiling,
lapping up gladness in brown gravy like Thanksgiving turkey,

our noses lips and smooth foreheads dripping,
sopped aglow in pooled delicious-ness,

outside the window a waterfall
aroar and pouring
lasting past our many doubts,
they're all wet

our now is fine and real
and over stones
so flowing

this music babbles
onward as
unclipped
wildness.

SCREEN YOUR VARMINTS BETTER

Why are all screen doors torn out in small town flatland Texas?

Bugs big as your fist worm their way through sagging
rusted metal without its sheen, orangeish iron careens
unsprung from dull bent tacks like drunk cowpokes lost
and sickened fast, metal thin as an elder’s skin
floats like dying tissue in the bloated breeze.

They heave their red meat guts on the kitchen floor,
heat stroke can hardly close the door against rough
and tough Neolithic insects or snuff lipped humans,
bowlegged unsung curmudgeons such as these.

August marauders try to beat the fucking never-ending heat,
do their best to wreck all rest in your messy nest, the downbeat
casita of squalid unspent dreams,

leave slithered trails of meandering yellow spittle
on this chipped bowl of half-eaten spilled granola
like a gruesome grieving pilgrim Gretel sans
her roly-poly ‘round up them
usual suspects’ Hans.

Now that you’ve read of Texas and its few proudest,
recall how The Late Poet writ it well, (hell, best):
“Good torn screen doors bug fake and boring neighbors.”

Black Mountain

Black Mountain became blacker today,
its granitic peak hid inside numbing
leaden covers of quilted fog,

and nobody had been ready.

Sorrowful clouds obscure any perhaps of day,
morning empties out promise completely,
now is altogether night.

Coal scraps from innards deep have been hauled
piece by leery piece in short tons up blind-sided
onyx tunnels by brave and weary men,

(oh their sodden silent pain, their once young arms
and limber legs have ached and ached for long
and fearful years)

and rowling heaving machines born in the reek and roil
of industrial nightmares where smoke thickened storms
brew sulfurous smells and warn with blood red pennants
windblown, waving from a thousand feet under this hollowed
out midnight sky.

Anthracite hunks pierce and scrape elegant tall
pines raw, rocks of congealed heat slice fierce
through rugged bark to fibrous skin where amber
sap once ran sticky as syrup and small children tumbled
across these acres until circles had each been named anew,
as so full they were that once,

and each crying salt tears and joyful shrieks in shade
below on pungent green and brown beds
of soft needles which surprise,

all they ever wanted
was to fly free like
those pleasing birds
and butterflies above,

there in the heavens
of seamless smiling
ease, radiant light
and the very yes!
of love.

Yet, Black Mountain
did darken today,

and these birds search
and grope for clear air
to breathe
and to be on wing again
in the wet cold gray
of a truly drizzling
morn.

family portrait

he ambles he shambles he mumbles
he has bumbled a lot in his life,

she scrambles she dabbles she troubles
she has doubled for nought as his wife,

their children foible they bible they libel
they shall babel down towers of strife.

cityparksummer

the man in the three piece suit relaxes
cross-legged on the weed-free lawn,

his shiny wingtips empty and grounded,
he waits for the boy with braces after
a downtown orthodontist visit.

the park swelters green almost tropical
in late June’s vibrant noontime,

cucumbers, pita and yogurt drinks
are sipped and munched by sprawling
crowds of gleaming lunchers,

(laughter and talk curve lively through the park’s
wandering perimeter, paint the moment comfortable)

the lad has met a new pal with happy eyes,
soft orangeish fur and a red studded leather collar,

as they romp through fragrant mown grass
sniff its farm-like sweetness,
dad fishes in the rumpled suit coat
for coins, or maybe, a few moist dollars.

the bright bell of the ice cream man
beams and scampers like music
or light across the verdant field

and the three Tuesday picnic-ers
begin to grin like drunken sailors
as they lick melt streams fast flowing
down strawberry and vanilla mountains.

GRAND CANYON BLUES

you’re on the edge of the Grand Canyon in day’s first purplish light,
alone you stand heavy as iron, bound by aches in this sixty year old body,

coffee, Prozac and a good woman won’t save or stop you now as you
picture the step off the cliff’s top and the long free scary swoop downwards.

ignoring the impact on others is the only way to do this,
you erase their horrific reactions to the news you’ve killed yourself,

as you say your last goodbyes to your life, its little lies, self pity and glories,
out of the early bright shine a blonde with killer legs and blue eyes men
would die for, walks up and asks you the time.

two hours later in Flagstaff, the blueberry pie alamode tastes sweet so
delicious so fine, goes down just right with these two smiles and big black
steaming mugs of coffee.

Coffeehouse Afternoon

a boy with eyes like sweet purple
grapes lights up grandma’s lap.

a young man with dreadlocks
of blackened rope chatters
to grandmother in her powder
blue baseball cap,
pets a puppy painted
black and white,
thin fingers fidget in the heat.

a woman with bold sun/
glasses and papers in her fist
drifts like autumn leaves
inside this coffee shop,
a minute later she walks out
with no beverage bought.

the boy with grape shaped eyes
sucks his thumb and watches all,
with luck, the next Cronkite, perhaps?

neighborly ways

Have you been
with a man
with a twitch
and a limp,

a born again
neighborly twit
with an iron
wrench
and fat
hammer
filling his fist

who fixed
you good
that summer
he sullied
your wench

after Beefeater
gin was imbibed
on a backyard
bench made
of wicker,
so woody
so dense

then with
his wicked
gloat twisted
grin purloined
your booze
and re-crossed
his fence

just as
the coming
monsoon
in late June
commenced
its drench?

Right Next Door

the old man next door sits forlorn in his plump red chair,
dreams of far vistas in tattered torn underwear,

a tube of dried out Polident squeezed thin
is next to the sink, while his lower bicuspids float
like dentures of doom in a diluted drink of cheap booze.

we laugh in the night’s bleary eyed middle of such a thing
as our bleeding gums and crusty eyes hear the bells ring,

announce the end which is coming no matter what
is done or not, for this to not happen we’d give up our bling,
write poems to distract from, forget we can sing.

oh god how we like to ignore through our myriad
addictions these final times of decline,

the very last breakfast
the slow fade of strawberries' shine,

this shadow cast everywhere
by the black Saturnian whore.

SCREAMER, SHE

She screamed a high animal yelp,
it cracked open the opaque
square transom.

I refused to offer her help until
her fiendish friends delivered
the full and final ransom.

Our past wasn't so checkered
as it was beleagured and
double-deckered,
a confused bullshit melange
of two unfit home wreckers.

I, at last unfettered, had now done
what was needed.

For years and bleary months she'd
ignored my pleas to come clean,
she'd left me unheeded.

Now her strident cries eased
this inner sadist, frankly
it felt pleasing as I smiled
widely---

a revengeful greedy fool
dying to deposit oodles of
green well earned moola!

happy whispers

Happy whispers
season the night
like sprinkles of salt
in pure white shafts
of pleasing
moonlight,

Listen easy in quiet
while the west wind
kisses your skin
as the soft sure
truth speaks
from within.

THE FLAG OF MY INTOLERANCE

Oh how I dig these anorectic chicks
with varicose veins, thick silicone lips,
fat plasticized tits, vapid elastic brains,

their stuccoed condos, neutered
computerized casitas with American
flags purchased at WalMart
by frequent shopper repeaters

drooping limp as cooked vermicelli
from paint flaked balconies
in grayish curtains of rain.

The wet red white and blue
salutes the innocent slain:

high flying falcons fallen
flat onto hot soaked asphalt,
squirrels squished immobile
under rolling rubbery Michelins

by drunken at-fault pickup
truck drivers, gun racked,
half deaf, bald skulled,
counterfeit grinners,

big ears glued
to countrified honky-tonk
music, they holler
and hoot off-tune,
an unhallowed refrain.

What Lies Under

Lift up the hotel
mattress hulk
in early morning
with Liza and
the rest of
your friends,

tip the big foam
rectangular bulk
down towards the foot,

peer into the lowlight
underneath the bed,

see a large hole
of dirt and rock dug
out several stories
above ground


and wonder how
three small spindly
evergreen trees
grew from seedlings
in darkness

with no sun
to reach
towards,

as innocent you
pouted
and dreamt,
slept easy
and snored

deeply above.

waiting for godknows

a tangled garden of rotting yellow vegetables
in a postage stamp square of once fertile dirt

we waited for whatnot
hot as a blacksmith shop
in late August’s mangled
freeway sun

FIRST

THE DAY
I WROTE
THAT FIRST
POEM

MY NOSE
BLED
RIVULETS
OF WARM
RED

AND THE
DICTIONARY
REFUSED
TO
OPEN.

MEAL TIME

a pool of French’s mustard,
creamy melted goldenrod,
lively tangs my lover’s
freckled dreamy skin.

we languish past time’s
wide window with paper
cups of ketchup, these crimson
puddles on her white belly
taste tart and sweet
together,

as we sink and swim and thrive,
flow down this menued stream
of brimming weirdly
wondrous flavors,

poke pillowed heads above
grandma’s fabled tablecloth,
wonder when and how will
the real good meal
temptingly begin?

She slowly twists open
the brand new jar of mayo,
spreads it amazingly thin
onto twin peaks of virgin earth
whose tips stand fresh and raw
in twisting winds beyond
these clouds of condiments

and as with a single tongue
and set of ivory teeth
like symbiotic tendrils
we eat and eat and eat,

nude silky skinned gourmands
we lick and chew,
smack and swallow such
gaily colored fluids

lunge into storms of hunger’s
tender wild growling
like crazy druids,

a pair of red white and sunny
yellow lips shine fat and happy in
this plunge delicious
of waning luscious light.

DO YOU?

do you ever feel
faded like an old
stain on the couch?

out of touch with
facebookers,
barely an onlooker,

a real geopolitical
slouch,

prone to mistake
a botched drone
flown into homes
over Pakistan

for an
outmoded
unconscionable
assault?