Monday, June 30, 2008

PARTS OF SPEECH

I've not yet met a preposition
whose fat pert lips
and sultry pout
did not compel me
to plant a wet one
(if grammatically the gesture fit)
over up about for through and down,
as love at first sight in the midst of black night
did paint quite bright the once pale town.

Friday, June 27, 2008

Alone On Uneven Cobblestones

Her eyes may shine, she is Guatemalan, a woman with glasses and a smile. My eyes hurt, weary with blur. Everything moves whichway inside black and smoke on the rise in the plaza. People pour out of the yellow church like cool thickened buttermilk or translucent wasps bound together. I wonder what to make of the happy frenzy here. Funereal in form and parade like in process, the event takes shape in time. Incense perfumes the November afternoon and I stand alone on the uneven cobblestones. I alone on uneven cobblestones.
The cobblestones and droves of brown people plunge forward on pilgrimage with Christ on the cross carried on their strong walnut shelled shoulders. My inclination is to follow wherever, and this is what I do on Thanksgiving’s first Sunday, searching for some thread of gratitude to grasp or hope to grab soon, or if not, perhaps later at least in the throng. At least some grateful thought for later like a small dessert in Paris at night. Egg custard, caramel and cigarettes pervade the restaurant air. Crème brulee brought and served for one. There alone as well.
There alone in Paris as it is in Antigua today. Guatemalan cobblestones contain memories of centuries or more I’m sure. Though stones so uneven won’t remember me whether Paris, Prague or Antigua. Of this I am quite sure. Horns blow bluesy over these stones reminding Paris of Prague. They remind Paris of Prague, pints of beer and the girl in gray beside the fountain with flowers in her hands. She held white flowers in the mist.
The wasps have all flown far, blown by the day’s final breeze while this buttermilk has been drunk and thickness is no more. And what remains on the cobblestones right now is what is left of Christ, as he breathes and heaves his last. Bows his head and dies. His head bows down, expiring.

Tuesday, June 24, 2008

My Moods

My moods can shift like sweet sea water
or a hot brisk breeze at noontime.

One moment I weep reading an ancestral poem
by Lucille Clifton
as she names her slavery story,
the next I’m brimming overfilled
as hope and fear spill forth,
from this well dug deep, unstill.

I write down these words to register my life
as slowly surely a little more learning
to love the present,
no matter what
no matter what,
makes its place inside me.

Thursday, June 19, 2008

THOUGHT PROCESS

This cool quiet breeze kisses
my neck through an open window,
a teasing tender lover
enters with her refreshing
caress. She, a stealth bomber,
showers beauty,
such soft landings,
onto my earth.

Birds chirp \sing-song\ back and forth,
women call out to each
other next door,
and cherries--
why are 2 round
shining red cherries,
a green stem,
and the old backyard
where not enough
occurred,
still necessary,
even now?

True Voice

Li-Young-Lee’s voice
is like listening
itself,
a small soft
bird alight,
just grazes
golden plum
liquid amber
leaves,
feathers aloft.

Autumn
afternoons
clarified
honey,
mellow
and rich,
liquified
silence.

Tuesday, June 17, 2008

Border Patrol

Eight painted white, pointed
fenceposts stand straight
as stiff sentries,
protect the yard gratefully
from miscreants,
perverts and truants.

Most prostitutes and the destitute
are perfectly exempt however
and might enter whether atheist,
Christian, Buddhist, Shinto or
not part of a private sect.
Yet what they encounter in\
side these gates shall stay
unsaid at present.

MORE TEETH MARKS

My little brother sits smiling
on a curb next to his best friend,
innocent and cute as a soft kitten
or a red kite alight
on a breezy hot afternoon..
Suddenly, he is a wild cat
with killer claws flung,
corncob teeth plunged
into Ricky’s bare abdomen,
this shocking attack a biting response
to a girl named Becky invited inside
their tight corner,
this intimate world of blood brothers.

Warm blood flowed that day
from a boy’s pink belly.
The friendship would not be
the same. Too late to control
his impulse, showing no restraint,
indelible crimson stains
scarred both the bitten
and the biter
in that sad assault.

To this day, when my brother walks
in the room (even if just to greet),
I may flinch and brace
for a potential animal attack.
I remember how the cat might yowl,
shriek, spit and tear innocent flesh.
The desperate bedlam
of violence collapsed
into chaos of flying fur tuft,
acidic fear and oh so lonely
deep abandoned howls
again ensues,
again.

Monday, June 16, 2008

TEETH MARKS

The bite of mitochondria,
hurt repeated past and present,
this multitude of tiny gluttons
in tight formation on parade,
hardly pleasant,
for days and days
and days,
until you and I in short are mute,
dissuaded from that great stone voice
which called out our twisting fates--
eventually sated our emerald choice
with craving for store bought
polished agates,
and now all but jaded this
our once and late good taste.

Sunday, June 15, 2008

Celebratory Ditty To Keighty Upon Graduating, June 12,2008

Hats off to Keighty!
Toss them up skyward!
Crack the champagne and
Pull out all stops!
My girl has done it,
She’s definitely tops!
Amazing quite true,
From jazz club to Panama
The end of high school!

Hats off to Keighty!
You’ve done it!
We’re proud!
You’re a graduate today,
You stand out from the crowd!
Four years of hard work,
You’ve climbed up this mountain,
Now rest here, enjoy
Your success’s cool fountain!

Seasonal Suggestive Disorder

Does it
feel
like Fall
to any of you?

Does light
drift down
and float
leaf-like,
sideways?

Do shouts
abound
from school
yard grounds
the first
full day
of class?

Do feelings
fill
your heart
with hope
or longings
far
from still?

Does it
feel
like Fall
to any of you?

Morning,Neighborhood

My neighbor’s front door groans
open, then

their screen door clangs
shut

while a birdcall, an airplane
landing and the wooden

mobile out the kitchen window
form a musical mélange.

Voices of children
soft, below me
in the alley,

make everything
Autumn.

moment

One blue leaf
drips down
the tavern door,
the pink
cheeked girl
bows
her head,
almost
imperceptibly.

MY DINNER WITH PEDRO

A white plate heaped with broccoli
organically grown
giving tasteful nutrition
for our skin and our bones.

Frozen burritos
all curled up with beans,
‘stick to your ribs’ fare,
busting these seams.

An absence of ice cream,
no dessert--oh shucks,
now we’re in trouble,
shit out of luck!

Perhaps all is not lost,
this bowl of red cherries,
tempting tonight,
promises sweet juicy puckers
for after supper delight.

Wallace Shawn, Andre Gregory
theater people yes,
but together they’re not,
latest rumor has it
over dinner they fought.

Saturday, June 14, 2008

"THE END OF THE LIFE OF RILEY"

I still grieve my cat Riley. The little feisty fart disappeared more than a year ago and there’s been no trace since then. He was almost nine years’ old at the time. Soon after, I received one phone call from a stranger who had read my sign describing his disappearance on a telephone pole up here in Golden Hill, my neighborhood. This guy’s phone number had a non-local area code, one I didn’t recognize. That seems to be getting more common these days. Sort of an example of globalization I guess. I appreciated his gesture, wherever he was from.
He thought he may have spied the rascal roaming in the thicket outside of the downtown San Diego post office one day. The old one, I’m sure you know it, a fairly big building, interesting architecturally, and across the street from the funky, totally outmoded central library—a library which I find personally embarrassing for such a big city. This is about ten or twelve blocks from the apartment where we lived, so I figured it was possible.
I drove down there with Ola who I’d been dating for a few months’. It’s such an unusual name—Ola, that is. She sat in the car while I looked in the bushes, if I recall. It was nice to have her moral support, but we didn’t have any luck, although there were several homeless people milling about out on the sidewalk who seemed friendly enough.
So ya, I miss him sometimes and this grief is mixed with definite guilt. True confession: I put a big dose of flea killing chemicals on him for the first time a day or two before he never returned home here. Perhaps I overdid it and overdosed him, although I’ll never know for sure what happened to Riley. I have to live with that.
At any rate, it wasn’t working out for the both of us. The place was small and he was very messy with the cat litter and way too aggressive. He bit me hard, scaring the crap out of me in the middle of the night when he would leap on my bed like a maniac, one too many times.

Good-bye dear crazy Riley. I did love you, so did Keighty.
Good-bye.

Morning Musings, Too

Surprise!
Wet streets,
cancelled meeting,
time to write.

Lifted
posture
spells
success.

Most
folks
prefer avoidance.
It’s too
hard
to live
easy
otherwise.


Granted,
these sirens
spell
social
compact—

but so
early,
so
strident?

Morning Musings, One

Rain,
men’s voices
in the alley,
an unusual
day in May.


The pink hand
of a soft girl,
morning
Spring rain
sprinkles San
Diego.


That certain
smell of some
library books---
where has
time
vanished? ....

WHERE DOES TIME
VANISH?

Slowing down
the mind,
something
else
being
sensed,
perhaps far
away so
close.

REUNION

Listen Now!
Listen Now!
Those three muse-keteers,
those holy Trinitarians
sing tonight on the silvery street
in the fine rain
and soft cool air.
We’re riveted right down
to the bone.

Walt, Kerouac, and Lorca stand
together
inside moons of in\
effable speech
and tender kisses,
kindness and wildness
shine from their black eyes,
heat pours from their
strong receiving bodies.

You men of the earth,
men of the city,
men of the dry
Andalusian
plains, Civil War
killing fields
and interstate highway
manic roadtrips,
we honor you,
and are thrice
blessed as our bare
skin tingles
electrically.

You faithful
to the taste
of blood oranges,
sweet melon
and white peaches,
give us this day
your nourishing bread
of shared time, and deep
and deep,
bluest night’s
dearest breath.

June Evening

Although I am sleepy as a wet dove,
there moves within my heart
a cool softness
breezy and awake.

Gentleness pervades
the night, the neighbors
talking, the absences around
me now.

Full of not much
is how and where
i like to begin
this tender
song
of sleep.

Pillow and fresh sheets
await the pleasing
of my body
my mind
my oh so easy
letting
go.

Friday, June 13, 2008

LIMINAL QUESTIONING

Can eyes close tight,
image a treebranch?

Would this treebranch,
if you sight it,
have fruit dangling
from its tip?

Has that tip tucked,
pointed moonwards,
extracted milk
from far planets?

Could that space-place
please us fully,
memory’s itch
satiated suchly?

Why THIS treebranch
shining spacious,
blooming rightly,
coaxing smiles?

Have two persons
unjoined pre-birth,
discovered union,
shared our earth?

How may greenthings
thrusting lifewards,
spill forth newness
thru time’s threshold?

Poetry Reading--Pacific Beach

Tonight I sat at the steep foot of a green mountain for hours,
just blocks from the California ocean,
eight waterfalls crashing and splashing to my left
with seventeen species of forgotten birds chittering and swooping
high above my open head, where once was bony skull now soft pink
membrane buzzing with nano-neurotransmitters, unknown as yet
to scientists or researchers.
This fleshy new mind feeling the cool whispers of pure night air, gathered the necessary reverent detail and wholebodied music of these ten to fifteen poets playing and plying their wheres and whyfors in this large room
here,
here in the high altitude evening of song with me!

Don’t ask me what was happening to my right, don’t do it---
there was nothing there in that direction for these three hours.
And, I was there. We were all present
for the green mountain,
wholeheartedly present, the circling birds,
the poets and their listeners, the fresh water falling
like ripe apples in an ancient
orchard of powerful purifying sound
and redolent smells,
sprouting nourishing
surprising meanings
in the damp sweet soil.
of sainted witchcraft and meandering wordplay felt
as light, its beam focused on life, truth and yes,
I’ll say it now, beauty,
it was a night in honor of beauty!

A night in honor of beauty.

Wednesday, June 11, 2008

Leapt, Again and Again..

Astonishment leapt
from my heart
as a single firefly lit
the moon
in a dazzling poem
of a moment!

Astonishment leapt
from my heart
as one firefly supped
from the moon
in a dazzling poem
of a moment!

Astonishment leapt
from my heart,
seahorses swam
through the sky
in a dazzling poem
of a moment!

Astonishment leapt
from my heart,
seahorses soar
in the sky
a poem
dazzling the moment

Astonishment leapt
from my heart
in a poem
dazzling
the moment!

DOMINGO, ANTIGUA--GOOD FRIDAY IN NOVIEMBRE

A smiling bespectacled Guatemalan woman
covered in a black shroud holds a picture
of the Christ bearing his cross below her bosom.

She stands with many others floating in clouds
of incense above the cobblestone square
outside La Merced,
this grand old yellow church
at the top of colonial Antigua.

They too are dressed in darkness
in the November afternoon. People gather together
to celebrate or to mourn in this small plaza,
(which is not clear at first, perhaps both)
as Christ crucified is lifted high
on Indian shoulders onto the narrow streets
in a slow moody procession which weaves
through the beautiful sunlit town.

Mournful horns like dozens of milky doves
sound their sorrows as believers suffused
with smoky fragrance carry Christ onwards.
Silent crowds grow thick. Men and women,
the old and young, stand in doorways along
this trail of tears, reverent and watchful.

I, the gringo, well, I am sobbing almost uncontrollably
in my private pilgrimage amongst this throng.
A sudden unplanned trip up the steep slopes of Mt. Calvary
may help to grieve the relationship just dead days ago
in the Mayan village of Jaibalito where perched above vast,
azure, surreal Lago de Atitlan and its three looming green
volcanoes, we died, were not buried,
have not been resurrected.

Tuesday, June 10, 2008

Orange Rind

A dried scrap of orange rind,
a smidgen of tinfoil stuck to it.
Suddenly, the bright sharp fragrance
of citrus intoxicates and bursts through
this ether, happily invading
the nose, eyes and skin..
I am transfixed again.

Waste is not wasted
when everything is saved
in a prayerful gesture of slow
ease and attentive listening,
like a summer’s day at the shore
complete with books and drinks,
snacks and open senses receiving,
smiling in the splashing clean
afternoon of laughter and waves
and toes squished together
in their own private mischief
buried under the damp sand.

HOT CEREAL

Remembering to add cinnamon to the coffee
today, I am back in time in other mornings
in my mom’s kitchens---
in the eight or so homes we lived in---
on the white stoves are silver saucepans brimming
with hot cereal, brown, bubbling, gradually thickening,
Wheatena or Roman Meal most likely,
my favorites.

Mom wears an apron tied in the back. We’ve a game
where I sneak up and untie the strings while she’s stirring
the pot with the big spoon. Laughing, she seems happy here
making breakfast for her family on chilly November
mornings.

We sit down to big bowls of thick hot mush
and watch the dollops of brown sugar melt,
slowly spreading over a fat island
of coarse grainy wheat afloat
in a pond of pure milk.

The first bite is so sweet, so warm
and calming,
the cereal laced with dark sugar
tastes like molasses,
‘stick to your ribs’ comfort,
satisfaction for the school day ahead.

I know now these full vessels
held food for our hearts as well,
meant to sustain and protect
through the storms
and struggles she
could not prevent
and yet surely would visit
our family and home.

SURPRISE SHOPPERS

Allen Ginsberg, Allen Ginsberg!
What are you doing here
perusing these stacks and stacks
of fax machines, cell phones
and printers?

Have you sold out,
bought stock at Staples?
Or, is the existential emptiness
of shoppers going nowhere ,
credit cards their crack cocaine,
wandering aisles of legal pads,
paper reams and paper clips
at Office Depot more to your liking?

Dear Allen,
don’t you know Walt Whitman,
Kerouac and Lorca,
those three muse-keteers,
are next door at Starbucks
gawking,
checking out that cute
kid with the crew-cut
who foams and serves
your scrumptious
cappucinos?

GOOD TEETH, GOOD NEIGHBORS

I noticed this morning
first thing in the mirror
a tooth has shifted a bit,
like a fenceboard
knocked out of place.

It now protrudes slightly
from its neighbors
thus creating an unevenness,
not unseemly at all,
just a spot
for my tongue
to play indoors.

Change in the Weather Report

Some folks fear storms and brace against weather.
Others can’t wait ‘til big winds blow bad
and rain screams toward earth as everything’s frenzied,
black like a stallion, wild with no rider.

Crack! Crack! Crack!
Golden spear~ bursts
of lightning
shatter,
brighten the scene.

Monday, June 9, 2008

Another Weather Report

Some folks fear storms and brace against weather.
Others can’t wait ‘til big winds blow bad
and rain screams toward earth as everything’s frenzied,
black like a stallion, wild with no rider.
Spear~ bursts of lightning crack open the scene!

Job Description

Bearing reality simply,
sensing my one
inescapable
life,
moment
to
moment
IN THIS BODY,
with all these aches and astonishments,
undone work and regrets,
closings/openings,
hopes, strains
and sweet
impermanent
pleasures,
is the true
task
at hand.

WEATHER REPORT

Some folks fear storms and brace against weather.
Others can’t wait ‘til the big winds blow bad
and rain screams toward earth as everything
goes black and frenzied
like a wild stallion with no rider,
lit up only by spear~ bursts of lightning.

Sunday, June 8, 2008

Weeping purifies,
Waterfall tumbling to earth
Washing clean grief’s face!

A SIT

You sit down on the brown couch, bring
in the day as a mosaic of sound.
You write a poem and drink strong coffee,
notice your breath and the mind’s
subtle sway.

The feel of this moment, embodied and clear,
nothing to finish now,
no one to fear.

There’s a sense of yourself, composed
and composing, rich with time’s gift,
free from supposing.
An ephemeral flowing,
a river so blue, this easy sense
of full presence,
which cleanses and cools.

Endurance

I feel these bones and muscles sturdy,
running while rooted
in the cool breeze
and clear mind
of myself.

Earth Day

I am going to live for once among these
enormous roses praying to the moon at midday
and I will smell with all my powers of concentration
their pink and orange edges
while rolling in the dry dirt covered by thorns
and serrated greenish leaves.

I am going to shout god’s four hundred and twenty
names through these warming tears of beauty, burden,
and loss and not stop looking straight into the mirror
until the real rest of quiet overtakes the day.

I am going to remember sitting tall with Blake
on the faded leather stools at the drugstore soda
fountain counter, Redi-Whip in hand, and
aerosol fresh, we once more spoon the thick golden caramel like pure Heaven onto this white girl vanilla ice cream and past our fat greedy pursed lips into our hypnotized mouths, laughing as boyhood lust fulfills itself again.
I will walk or ride to the drugstore every afternoon in a ritual of communion, not worrying whether my bike stays safe on the near side of Prescott Street away from my mother’s fear of troubling traffic.

We will steal his mother’s money straight from her black purse to celebrate and feast forever like rich pimps or thieves on the lam in Baghdad.

LOAFING INTO LOVE

Lazy Moon,
why are you

so ripe
so round

as winter
approaches?

Beautiful black
Moon, is

your whole
being blooming

and beckoning Love?

"DANCE OF LIFE!"

“And You Garcia Lorca, What Were
You Doing Down By the Watermelons?” (Allen Ginsberg)

The young lithe Spaniard thumps
these frutas verde, muy grande,
muy gordita, these pregnant sandias,
like ancient Arabic drums
found in dense dry chapparal
on the Andalusian roadside,
blessed under a virgin’s black moon.

Music imbued with gypsy songs
of our invisible dead, sweeten
these days blazing with joy.
The hot clear air is pungent,
smelling full flavored
thick with saffron and thyme.

Lorca licks his wet lips,
and for one grateful instant
by God’s good grace
every fascist in Spain
takes up a pistol and shoots
himself straight through the head.

The poet and his people dance in the dirt,
rejoice aloud in strong praise
of the life~giving Sun.
They drink wine from the hills
as white blossoms of words,
honey from beehives deep
in the heart beguile
and liquefy the night.

Shiny black seeds spit forth
from the belly of fruit become
the wise, foolish twins holding hands:
MADNESS she grins, BEAUTY he shimmers,
TOGETHER CREATION CONTINUES.

Stepping Towards Transformation

Come, step with me
into the waterfall….

Come. Part this wet curtain.
Breathe in the moistness here.
Feel inside watery molecules.
Fall freely into liquid goodness.

Generously radiate this cool
mist of yourself
into the damp soil
and soft fresh ferns.

Give the enduring firs and alders
deep drink
of your life.

Come….

Saturday, June 7, 2008

"News Piece" (Questing for Home)

There was a news piece
on the radio this morning:
about people displaced from
their homes for many
many months now after
the destructive Fall firestorms
in Southern California.

They all possess such heavy disappearances.
Gone are favorite chairs and bedroom doors,
cherished notes from friends or grandmothers,
dressers full of socks and secrets,
smooth well worn banisters,
the reassurance of neighborly connections,
grade school artwork and
cardboard boxes piled with photographs and buttons.
No longer are the easy familiar
smells of cinnamon toast on Monday morning
and roasting chicken on Sunday
redolent in the air of home for them.
They sense the absences of floors feeling just right
beneath the stepping foot,
and have become a kind of nomad floating
in the suburban drift of San Diego.

It can occur sometimes that a person
or whole family loses home due to disaster,
job transfer, gypsy wanderlust,
or necessary migration,
and although may live later
tidily under a tile roof within four
sturdy walls in a house well stocked
with warm beds and blankets, a silver
toaster on granite counters, and a large deep
bathtub, they might wander forever in a subtle grayness,
unplaced and unconsciously forlorn.

Searching,
not quite rooted in the real,
their calloused tired
or soft pink feet
have partly
forgotten
the sacred touch
of the safely known
ground of particular,
pleasurable being.

And so,
may all such persons
who inch along
such a meandering
hard packed path
find in their hidden
mourning and seeking
small havens of time
warm with comfort,
the goodness of place
and true belonging.
May moments of grace’s gaze
leaping between them and a found friend
proffer a new dwelling
for hope, clarity of sweet
waters running strong
from every forest,
and a returning
some where
so welcoming,
as in the center of a circle
of love and memory
or
quiet
human joy.

Friday, June 6, 2008

Sudden Victory

In the middle of our bruising break-up,
me all in a tumult of fear and grief,
in the midst of her small kitchen
in the Guatemalan cottage tucked
back in the jungle above the blue
vast beautiful lake,
I suddenly saw ‘VICTOR’ boldly
printed on the label of the brown
liter beer bottle.

I’d meant for the alcohol to anesthetize
our pain, but when my father’s name leapt
at me across the messy table in my sorrow
and confusion,
I knew in a flash of sobriety
we were through,
completely through,
stale beer in a broken vessel.

Thursday, June 5, 2008

"FOR JEVAN"

WHEN COLIMA BURST
WHITE STEAM EXPLODING STRAIGHT UP,
WE RAN LIKE DEER DOWN!
Stumbling old lady
white hair swallowed by black night
awe and fear mingle.

"SUMMER"

One red cherry
dangling,
fat maraschino,
with your short
green stem,
juicy, lolling
lazily,
ready for
my
munching
into.

"Ingredients for Serenity"

It takes grit
and courage
to hang long
against
granite
if hungry
and not languish
gracelessly
in the urgencies
and grim,
pale-ish gray
gutters of gluttony.

"Today"

‘Today’


The depressed mind saps
all the juice from a poem,
only thin dry filaments
and cracked husks
of lifeless language
left scattered, abandoned
like dead laboratory
mice decomposing
on the cutting room floor.

Formed in Fun

‘Formed in Fun’

Welcome this time true
to its own form,
foolish maybe but free,
heart pounding wildly
riding your red
paperboy’s bike
with no hands
down ‘Dead Man’s Hill’
daring yourself not
to use the brakes.

This was living on edges with ease,
the day dream of pure animal glee.

Now we’re talking love!
Climbing those forbidden
backyard fences and slippery
roofs of unknown neighbors
shocked during dinner
by you and your pal,
pre-adolescent partner in crime,
stomping big up there
on the tarry shingles
above their houses and heads
bowed, muttering grace
at the tables as we
cooked up a percussive surprise.

And when that thankyouGod
rare snow fell on our streets
glistening all white and slippery
so school was shut down
tight as a new Wilson mitt,
we celebrated by bombarding
the bus and cars dumb enough
to slide out on twenty-ninth street
with acres of snowball bombs
scoring frequent hits,
each white poof on metal or glass
a blizzard of joy,
a mastery of boyhood
delight.

I remember the adventures
in our city those secret
seasons of white and heat
with sleds and barefeet
as the times life opened
her rowdy sweet embrace
all the way,
completely,
all the way
home.

Ergo,Igor

‘Ergo, Igor’

Igor Delahanty from Vladivostok,
half Irish, half-wit, all Cossack.
Flamboyant, erudite, and pompous,
loved center stage,
a clown in the circus.

He married young, had six screaming
Delahantys,
stayed out carousing, thus
his wife he did not please.

Too much vodka and who knows what
else one cold night,
did leave frigid poor Igor,
all ice blue and rigid
with frostbite.