Faux
’m faux.
The dawn rises,
Closing its eyes to me,
And then winks.
No one knows the
Source of my incredible
Power.
To reveal the source
Would be to extinguish
My place within it,
In this form.
In the new form.
I would again be faux.
~~
Crickets
Crickets have
Long held
A sacred contract
With worms, knowing
The earth
Has its
Wind and fire contacts
Its own power
To quake
Your left foot
Miles from your
Head. True
There is soot
In your nose
From artificial
Structures built
In the easiest places.
The earth is making itself
In an image you have never seen,
Heard about,
You will never
Have the chance
To remember.
Crickets have
Long held
A sacred contract
With worms, knowing
The earth
Has its
Wind and fire contacts
Its own power
To quake
Your left foot
Miles from your
Head. True
There is soot
In your nose
From artificial
Structures built
In the easiest places.
The earth is making itself
In an image you have never seen,
Heard about,
You will never
Have the chance
To remember.
~~
Looking
The huge blades of a house plant,
Just barely touch the silence
Like an image touches the
Surface of water.
Dad lights another smoke
And sees, straight ahead
The images of World War Two
His job as a Staff Sergeant,
An Ambulance Driver.
And he sees diapers
And shirts and holy
Men's underwear
Staring at him from under the window.
I, standing tall in my crib
Gawking at the bright colors
Everywhere
Of Mom’s funeral Flowers.
Dad lights another smoke
And drives around the corner
Of bombed out buildings
Looking for survivors.
The huge blades of a house plant,
Just barely touch the silence
Like an image touches the
Surface of water.
Dad lights another smoke
And sees, straight ahead
The images of World War Two
His job as a Staff Sergeant,
An Ambulance Driver.
And he sees diapers
And shirts and holy
Men's underwear
Staring at him from under the window.
I, standing tall in my crib
Gawking at the bright colors
Everywhere
Of Mom’s funeral Flowers.
Dad lights another smoke
And drives around the corner
Of bombed out buildings
Looking for survivors.
~~
MARRIAGE
Marry me!
I am a worthless man
With a raging sex drive.
Like the great French
Of the past ages -
I don’t bathe.
Marry me!
I work at McDonald’s
Two days a week.
I love Blink 182.
Or would you marry me
If I said this:
Marry me!
I gave Florence Nightingale
One of my kidneys.
I was the inspiration
For James Tate’s
The Oblivion Ha-Ha.
I delivered mail to the
Gettysburg Address.
I gave Anthony Hopkins
His penchant for warm tea.
So now you see it.
Through the ages
Good and bad men have found mates.
Marriage is a wonderful coat.
That keeps warm
The one who puts it on.
Marry me!
I am a worthless man
With a raging sex drive.
Like the great French
Of the past ages -
I don’t bathe.
Marry me!
I work at McDonald’s
Two days a week.
I love Blink 182.
Or would you marry me
If I said this:
Marry me!
I gave Florence Nightingale
One of my kidneys.
I was the inspiration
For James Tate’s
The Oblivion Ha-Ha.
I delivered mail to the
Gettysburg Address.
I gave Anthony Hopkins
His penchant for warm tea.
So now you see it.
Through the ages
Good and bad men have found mates.
Marriage is a wonderful coat.
That keeps warm
The one who puts it on.
CROP SHARING
A crop of limp fingers
Extend arms of chairs
Planted sporadically
Around the room.
We do not water our selves
While cultivating fear.
Mother string bean.
Pepper brother.
Lima bean father.
Hang by the vine.
Sister radishes
Underground.
She is the only one
With roots enough to.
A crop of limp fingers
Extend arms of chairs
Planted sporadically
Around the room.
We do not water our selves
While cultivating fear.
Mother string bean.
Pepper brother.
Lima bean father.
Hang by the vine.
Sister radishes
Underground.
She is the only one
With roots enough to.
~~
Dancing
Sitting in a coffee shop
I looked out the window.
A maple tree
and a beautiful woman,
each garner my attention
in their own way.
The maple tree, in this way:
When I was a child ,
I walked out of our house.
With its reddish brown paint.
The maple tree would greet me.
Grounded, reassuring.
With Brilliant Color.
With Winged Seeds
That Danced To The Ground.
Sitting in a coffee shop
I looked out the window.
A maple tree
and a beautiful woman,
each garner my attention
in their own way.
The maple tree, in this way:
When I was a child ,
I walked out of our house.
With its reddish brown paint.
The maple tree would greet me.
Grounded, reassuring.
With Brilliant Color.
With Winged Seeds
That Danced To The Ground.
~~
I am I am the capillaries
Of every rock.
I am the lizard’s smile.
I am the scratch
On your new Ford,
The numbers
On your radio dial.
Don’t tell me
Quiet afternoons
With your lover
Are your reason
For living.
I am the sheets
That you lie on.
Of every rock.
I am the lizard’s smile.
I am the scratch
On your new Ford,
The numbers
On your radio dial.
Don’t tell me
Quiet afternoons
With your lover
Are your reason
For living.
I am the sheets
That you lie on.
~~
Zoot Suit ( pages 11, 12, 13 )
The smoke is rising.
Harold sits
November 12, 1941
Not on the Left Bank in Paris.
Not in a trendy coffee shop.
But rather.
In a truck stop diner
Just outside Huron, Ohio
Routes 2 and 6
Puffing away.
His poem is of love,
Dark shadows,
And bright unredeemable light.
The frigid truck stop diner
Is full of grease:
Crisco, motor oil, U-joint lubricant,
Transmission oil,
And the laughter of truckers
Who don’t have to go home.
The Delicious, Thick,
Terrible Coffee
Spills through the pages
of his yellow pad
AS HE TRIES TO WRITE “INFRACTION”
AS HE TRIES TO WRITE
SOMETHING
POETICALLY A KIN TO
“ WRONG DOING”
The truckers give him
the courtesy of
Ignoring him, of pretending to be ignorant of
Poetry anywhere.
Their truck motors hum outside
Staying warm in their iambic pentameter.
Crows defecate in their favorite places:
Wind shields and Driver’s seats.
Mildred dumps more coffee in each coffee pitcher
As Bart curses about his load of chickens,
As Our Cook Horatio,
Tries to balance two strips of old bacon
On lettuce and tomato.
“Who orders a BLT in a truck stop, For God’s sake?”,
he asks himself.
Harold dissects his BLT
Into it’s many parts:
He puts the bread naked onto the table,
Puts half a strip of bacon
in his black coffee.
One cycloptic
18 wheeler headlight glares down the
Black lines of his yellow pad.
Two slices of tomato
Two shreds of lettuce
Sit, overlapping,
On a small plate.
The smoke is rising.
Harold sits
November 12, 1941
Not on the Left Bank in Paris.
Not in a trendy coffee shop.
But rather.
In a truck stop diner
Just outside Huron, Ohio
Routes 2 and 6
Puffing away.
His poem is of love,
Dark shadows,
And bright unredeemable light.
The frigid truck stop diner
Is full of grease:
Crisco, motor oil, U-joint lubricant,
Transmission oil,
And the laughter of truckers
Who don’t have to go home.
The Delicious, Thick,
Terrible Coffee
Spills through the pages
of his yellow pad
AS HE TRIES TO WRITE “INFRACTION”
AS HE TRIES TO WRITE
SOMETHING
POETICALLY A KIN TO
“ WRONG DOING”
The truckers give him
the courtesy of
Ignoring him, of pretending to be ignorant of
Poetry anywhere.
Their truck motors hum outside
Staying warm in their iambic pentameter.
Crows defecate in their favorite places:
Wind shields and Driver’s seats.
Mildred dumps more coffee in each coffee pitcher
As Bart curses about his load of chickens,
As Our Cook Horatio,
Tries to balance two strips of old bacon
On lettuce and tomato.
“Who orders a BLT in a truck stop, For God’s sake?”,
he asks himself.
Harold dissects his BLT
Into it’s many parts:
He puts the bread naked onto the table,
Puts half a strip of bacon
in his black coffee.
One cycloptic
18 wheeler headlight glares down the
Black lines of his yellow pad.
Two slices of tomato
Two shreds of lettuce
Sit, overlapping,
On a small plate.
~~
Have I
Have I ever asked you to kiss me?
You have done it one your own.
Have I ever asked your fingertips
To feather me?
Your weight to warm me?
Your smile to cheer me?
I ask now.
Cheer me.
Please.
Make me warm again.
Reassure me like answers
In the back of the book.
Have I ever asked you to kiss me?
You have done it one your own.
Have I ever asked your fingertips
To feather me?
Your weight to warm me?
Your smile to cheer me?
I ask now.
Cheer me.
Please.
Make me warm again.
Reassure me like answers
In the back of the book.
~~
Ivy
Withstanding our long affair
The brown ivy
Keeps its promise.
My eyes
Can build no change of view,
For in death the ivy holds.
In death the ivy holds its leaves
At attention.
Unfulfilled
My anger
Churns out
Respect
For the stubborn endings.
Withstanding our long affair
The brown ivy
Keeps its promise.
My eyes
Can build no change of view,
For in death the ivy holds.
In death the ivy holds its leaves
At attention.
Unfulfilled
My anger
Churns out
Respect
For the stubborn endings.
Title Text.
Crickets
Crickets have
Long held
A sacred contract
With worms, knowing
The earth
Has its
Wind and fire contacts
Its own power
To quake
Your left foot
Miles from your
Head. True
There is soot
In your nose
From artificial
Structures built
In the easiest places.
The earth is making itself
In an image you have never seen,
Heard about,
You will never
Have the chance
To remember.
Crickets have
Long held
A sacred contract
With worms, knowing
The earth
Has its
Wind and fire contacts
Its own power
To quake
Your left foot
Miles from your
Head. True
There is soot
In your nose
From artificial
Structures built
In the easiest places.
The earth is making itself
In an image you have never seen,
Heard about,
You will never
Have the chance
To remember.
~~
The Purpose of Commercials
I sat
Like I always do
In my Lazy Boy™
My son came up the gravel drive
In this 56 Ford.
He’s had the same car
for nearly 50 years.
He slammed the car door,
Slammed the screen door
He shoved the
Couch
Across the room.
With one hand.
I never wanted kids
Marge wanted kids.
The knife went in
Such a twisted way.
I was still alive
As he drove away
As the soap opera.
Went to commercial.
I sat
Like I always do
In my Lazy Boy™
My son came up the gravel drive
In this 56 Ford.
He’s had the same car
for nearly 50 years.
He slammed the car door,
Slammed the screen door
He shoved the
Couch
Across the room.
With one hand.
I never wanted kids
Marge wanted kids.
The knife went in
Such a twisted way.
I was still alive
As he drove away
As the soap opera.
Went to commercial.
~~
Forcefully
Leaning forcefully
into the Common moonlight
The waitress
Pours one more black coffee.
Communally,
Into the Various mouths
Of the interstate
Truck Driver,
Trafficking in HIV.
Into the Various mouths
Of the wire haired
Professor
Massaging the pages
Of his wrinkled manuscript,
Into the Various mouths
Of the young man
Stroking his milk shake glass
The shape of a Shy Girl.
.
Neither Lights nor
Artificial Creamer
Are needed or noticed.
No one is looking.
Leaning forcefully
into the Common moonlight
The waitress
Pours one more black coffee.
Communally,
Into the Various mouths
Of the interstate
Truck Driver,
Trafficking in HIV.
Into the Various mouths
Of the wire haired
Professor
Massaging the pages
Of his wrinkled manuscript,
Into the Various mouths
Of the young man
Stroking his milk shake glass
The shape of a Shy Girl.
.
Neither Lights nor
Artificial Creamer
Are needed or noticed.
No one is looking.
~~
Scrag
Short cropped, ill cut,
Scraggily hair
Of a young forced scrag.
His 3 year old eyes look up.
His eyes can not see anything
Being swollen shut with cuts and bruises.
She hits him again.
What else can we say?
And she hits him yet again.
He looks down,
Straight down to his feet.
Thankful for shoes.
Thankful for feet to look at.
She grabs his tiny hand,
Proud of her dominance.
Man is an exception, whatever else he is. If he is not the image of God, then he is a disease of the dust. If it is not true that a divine being fell, then we can only say that one of the animals went entirely off its head.
G. K. Chesterton (1874–1936), British author. All Things Considered 8).1
1The Columbia Dictionary of Quotations is licensed from Columbia University Press. Copyright © 1993, 1995 by Columbia University Press. All rights reserved.
Short cropped, ill cut,
Scraggily hair
Of a young forced scrag.
His 3 year old eyes look up.
His eyes can not see anything
Being swollen shut with cuts and bruises.
She hits him again.
What else can we say?
And she hits him yet again.
He looks down,
Straight down to his feet.
Thankful for shoes.
Thankful for feet to look at.
She grabs his tiny hand,
Proud of her dominance.
Man is an exception, whatever else he is. If he is not the image of God, then he is a disease of the dust. If it is not true that a divine being fell, then we can only say that one of the animals went entirely off its head.
G. K. Chesterton (1874–1936), British author. All Things Considered 8).1
1The Columbia Dictionary of Quotations is licensed from Columbia University Press. Copyright © 1993, 1995 by Columbia University Press. All rights reserved.
~~
Periphery
He stands.
As close as is
Humanly possible
To the Bay window.
Trying to become part of the glass.
Trying to become part of the
Currier and Ives triptych.
A woman walks by
Saunders by really –
Or is it a man?
Muttering incessantly.
Surely Lewis Carroll
Would have seen the Absurdity in this.
A man trying to be a sheet of glass.
As the figure hobbles
from his right to left,
He stares intensely,
Purposefully,
Out the right most panel,
Taking the other views
In his peripheral vision.
Our hours in love have wings; in absence, crutches.
Colley Cibber (1671–1757), English actor-manager, playwright. Tamira, in Xerxes, act 4, sc. 3.1
1The Columbia Dictionary of Quotations is licensed from Columbia University Press. Copyright © 1993, 1995 by Columbia University Press. All rights reserved.
He stands.
As close as is
Humanly possible
To the Bay window.
Trying to become part of the glass.
Trying to become part of the
Currier and Ives triptych.
A woman walks by
Saunders by really –
Or is it a man?
Muttering incessantly.
Surely Lewis Carroll
Would have seen the Absurdity in this.
A man trying to be a sheet of glass.
As the figure hobbles
from his right to left,
He stares intensely,
Purposefully,
Out the right most panel,
Taking the other views
In his peripheral vision.
Our hours in love have wings; in absence, crutches.
Colley Cibber (1671–1757), English actor-manager, playwright. Tamira, in Xerxes, act 4, sc. 3.1
1The Columbia Dictionary of Quotations is licensed from Columbia University Press. Copyright © 1993, 1995 by Columbia University Press. All rights reserved.
Poem Just Before Flying
Think about the chaos of
Human beings,
Just before flying.
Part Two:
Now please consider this:
The Robin
The Meadowlark.
The Hawk.
The common farm Chicken.
The statue
of a Whooping Crane
In front of the history museum.
In that exact moment
Just before flying.
Need I say more?
~~
Northern Minnesota
She is quiet.
Lying on her side.
Having been
Tranquilized.
And now the
Park Ranger
Kills her.
Her family,
Her pack of wolves
Killed a farmers cow.
~~
Moth Days
I waited for days for the moth
To Surface, to come up
To get frantic about a way out
Of my small room.
Finally he appeared
Stumbling, Confused.
I opened a huge box,
He flew in.
I stuck the box through the window,
Releasing him where
He would be happier.
And as I danced in the kitchen
Singing “I saved a moth!” “
I saved a moth!”
He casually flies out
From under the flap of the box
Calmly
Back into my kitchen
Looking for nothing.
I waited for days for the moth
To Surface, to come up
To get frantic about a way out
Of my small room.
Finally he appeared
Stumbling, Confused.
I opened a huge box,
He flew in.
I stuck the box through the window,
Releasing him where
He would be happier.
And as I danced in the kitchen
Singing “I saved a moth!” “
I saved a moth!”
He casually flies out
From under the flap of the box
Calmly
Back into my kitchen
Looking for nothing.
Fredrick ( for Katherine )
Frederick
Guards himself
In conversation.
Protects himself
With his brilliance
In Art History
At night he cries
Into a pink doily The only thing he has left
From the car accident
That took his life.
Frederick
Guards himself
In conversation.
Protects himself
With his brilliance
In Art History
At night he cries
Into a pink doily The only thing he has left
From the car accident
That took his life.
~~
KEN SAWYER MEMORIAL PROSE POEM
Going down the back stairs
At the Pacific Cultural Center
In Santa Cruz
Loading Adya’s red Toyota.
Cowboy and I.
As usual Cowboy was a wisp.
A quiet, loud, wise, quick, comical wisp.
Cowboy was funny and straight to the point.
We got the car packed perfectly in a few minutes.
What he actually said is gone,
And is ever present.
Like he is now, years later,
An ever present, lingering, love.
And also now, I’m sitting
At his memorial service,
In my beautifully odd
Tie and sports shirt.
Everyone shares a story.
I can not speak.
I wanted to say
“I love you all –
Each and everyone of you - forever.”
That is what Ken
Was always saying,
In his Cowboy Way.
Going down the back stairs
At the Pacific Cultural Center
In Santa Cruz
Loading Adya’s red Toyota.
Cowboy and I.
As usual Cowboy was a wisp.
A quiet, loud, wise, quick, comical wisp.
Cowboy was funny and straight to the point.
We got the car packed perfectly in a few minutes.
What he actually said is gone,
And is ever present.
Like he is now, years later,
An ever present, lingering, love.
And also now, I’m sitting
At his memorial service,
In my beautifully odd
Tie and sports shirt.
Everyone shares a story.
I can not speak.
I wanted to say
“I love you all –
Each and everyone of you - forever.”
That is what Ken
Was always saying,
In his Cowboy Way.