Archive for April, 2009

flash in the trash a rash of stash

Tuesday, April 28th, 2009

and nothing else that’s new
a glimmer in the night precludes
a run on the food-bank instead

of milestones placed by runners
of sleds bearing gifts bartering
for smooth faces and wet loins

in the entries of clubs and bats
are leaving the confines of misery
to enjoy the bliss of ravens

when mockingbirds are parroting
the real estate magnates in the sand
for carrying out someone else’s trash

and why not says the ferret
who is a symbol of the ever-seeking
minds of tarot readers and shaman

alike in their quest for rhythmic
balance of power and might beside
the seven-eleven of their souls delight

only to find a carcass instead
of the bonfire inside that glowing
shell of mercy beside the walls

of brick and murder just above
the sealing wax which is funneling
into a bright new flower

back-and-forth in its repetitious
swings as this rhythm plays itself
right out of existence — for now anyway

sniff, slurp, cough-cough
and more mundane thoughts
in a random spewing decorate pages

with nonsense that may divine
some meaning somehow, somewhere
for anyone who will look deeply enough

without allowing the dense filter
of academic analysis to cloud further
the already vague images set forth

while the writer is in a fog
of illness and weary of sitting motionless
feeling the flash of time missed

out of synch with the environs and inhabitants
of the whole tableau set before the eyes
that wince with stiffness above the running

nose and dangling throat of raspy snot
and gooey slime that weighs down a mind
that’s better suited for racing and speed

rather than the confines of sluggish
non-thought, non-action, non-non and non-anon
so its time to quit and leave the rest for rest

…but I digress.

snot & phlegm

Tuesday, April 28th, 2009

i long for a flow of nonsense
that can awaken me from a lethargy
brought on by my body playing
with some cold germs

from an airplane through my partner
because of the past taxing season
at H&R Block ® – go figure
and remember to wear a mask

of amontillado when approaching
a distant relative of the writer of Zoro
especially if there is salmon involved
and catching a virus is not scheduled

on anyone’s itinerary and certainly
not a sought after condition
when weather is turning warmer
and the full heat of desert summer looms

is it any easier to paint than write
when the body is in a funk through no fault
of its owning anything resembling a
good haircut or decent clothing

or even a mind that can think clearly
but then that’s never held me back before
so I should launch into writing from
mucus and phlegm constricted depths

from the post mental drip of old ideas
may sprout some neti fueled clearness
and perhaps a few lucid words but
i want more, much more from this pit

of snot than most would expect because
that’s me, the great expector of miracles
and good from bad and all that stuff so
i’m really disappointed that this is all

i could come up with when i was just
beginning to see something through that
foggy golden glass that separates me
from the figures and their shadows

within that warm and inviting room
where there appears to be a lively discussion
of things immortal and yet so much
of the flesh and i want to engage it

a cold

Tuesday, April 28th, 2009

having a cold is like wearing
a concrete overcoat and having the hanger
in your throat and nose

You can’t visit friends for fear of contagion
but long for their company
and a reprieve from the heaviness you feel

sniff, sniff, cough, cough, cough
spitting and blowing all sorts of stuff
and feeling a half-second late all day

you know what good health feels like
and swear its just around the corner
in the strobing reality of a common cold

another beautiful day

Sunday, April 26th, 2009

Got the word basket out onto my computer screen
and I’m tossing in the early scraps that precede the making
of any sense and finding hidden poignancy and insight
in the fact that at some point something of value will emerge.

Its cooler out my open window this morning, the sun
is over the nearby hills illuminating the film of dirt
that clings to the panes and makes a screen for the projection
of hibiscus shadows dancing in time with the swaying cords

of the up-pulled blinds and the sun is reflecting off the mirrored
doors of the closet behind me and into my eyes off the monitors
glossy surface telling me its time to change things a bit but
wait, there’s a really cool looking rainbow visible in that reflection

it is very ordered and linear with the colors displaying as increments
along a long horizontal line that is aiming directly at my head
as if it may be carrying some message from a distant universe
only it can’t get through since the fingerprints on the monitor

are distracting my gaze and drawing me into the beautiful depth
of the other reflections that my lingering study is discovering like
bits of random but purposefully placed anchors of emoted flotsam
crying out for interpretation and inclusion in a dance that’s about to

engulf the entire cacophony of this morning’s bird twittered sunrise
in waves of arhythmic orgasm that surround my entire being
including those aural extensions so rarely realized and now
I can feel my personal inclusion in this rebirth symphony

cleansing away the dark of night past and winding up the spring
that energizes this daily cycle of life in which every atom plays
a leading role where up meets down and in out rebounding
in this timeless infinite universe we keep clawing at. Aaah.

Another beautiful day.

what would a sports poem be like

Saturday, April 25th, 2009

if rather than words flying over the outfield wall
they were intimate two-seaters low to the ground
with stiff suspension and quick steering –
now that would turn a phrase so to speak

and maybe a sports-utility poem could navigate
rough terrain like the barriers of social contempt
and crime ridden streets or carry heavy articles meant
for serious things like death and kids

and maybe if one had four doors – four ways out
and a trunk in back with a few spare words
and easy in and out access whether large
and burdensome or small and easy to park

somewhere in the back of your mind and
its smaller cousin, a hatch-back couplet – easy access
combined with efficiency – could eagerly carry
a few of those larger concepts for two

improving environs and refitting lifestyles
to accommodate realities in energy markets
while figuring out how to get back home without
loosing it all what ever IT might have become

but this poem is only a low-budget transport trailer
with a mixed load of beaters on top with nothing
to pull it, no motive force hitched on front
but your brain and mine — get it outta here.

bring the fire

Saturday, April 25th, 2009

Words licking like fire from inside
that huge cavernous space where the heart
lives so seemingly quiet though warm
and obviously the home of something

that can at times sear the very wind
and at others be that wind so softly moving
in and out making a web of living
and breathing and speaking words

FIRE and feeling bursting with angst
or just wandering around in search of
a place that offers something, anything
PLEASE, burn me brightly once more

I love that feeling of your fiery flow
as it passes from me out into the open
ears that MUST take it in and see it
flash onto the screen of mind and heart

to either spew back invectively or pass forth
with rebuilt vigor as a whole new font
a raspy filtered utterance that moves molecules
and boulders from recalcitrant hearts.

forty two

Tuesday, April 21st, 2009

a couple of old codgers
napping in the afternoon
is that really you and me?

each born in ’42
we seem to be in sync
in our noddings

and its 42 degrees warmer
than where my son who turned
42 years old today is

turning another leaf
on the same date as
my old friend Doug

who is way beyond 42
which has nothing to do
with this silliness on 42

but then that’s two
born on the same date, 21
and 2 times that is 42

and the temperature
at my son’s is 63
which minus 42 is 21

hah.

supposed to

Tuesday, April 21st, 2009

forty-two years ago today
my first child was born
and I did all the things
I thought I was supposed to

His cute little mother-to-be
whom I’d been intimate with
the night just before was
whisked into our car

and raced to the hospital
where I was forced to stay
in a waiting room and pace
and smoke just like I thought

I was supposed to and wonder
whether it was a girl or boy
who witnessed our love
the night before and pace

and read old magazines
until I heard my name and
the words “It’s a boy” like
I knew I was supposed to

but I had to wait to see him
since he was incubated in
a plastic box with tubes and lights
for his first hour outside his mom

and none of this was in any
scripts I had heard of
how it’s supposed to be
so waited with his mom to see

and when he was finally
brought in to his mother’s breast
it was just like it’s supposed to be
a complete real life family

and since that day in April
I’ve been blessed with a gift
that none can equal or even
come anywhere close to

having a son who thankfully
in spite of me has been a true friend
and pride these years as I’ve seen
him become a father himself

and to my constant joy and pride
has been better at that and loving
than I ever was to my chagrin —
just like it’s supposed to be.

sunday surf

Sunday, April 19th, 2009

A warm Sunday afternoon surf
reveals on craigslist under Free
a backpack kit and books
beehives with free bees and
a free lot of scrap metal

accompanied by free rock and dirt
garage-sale leftovers and best
of all a free horse just above
yesterday’s jacuzzi/spas and
moving boxes or kittens.

The free horse is a 12 year old
paint mare used as
a brood-mare not rideable
she must have carried some heavy
broodings and no picture

and under the general we find
elbow and shin guards
a back brace neckties and
a chest freezer with
diapers adult large

red bull minifridge ceiling fan
wheelchair mountain bikes and
large salt water fish tank with
cash register and silver dollars
cash only and no emails

surfing those blue waves of type
now have flotsam of purple hits
bobbing like kelp bulbs over
the gray pane of the global
flea-market. Next… ?

binary relationships

Saturday, April 18th, 2009

Within a family each sibling is such a focus of centuries of evolution
and the culmination of so many parental combinations its a wonder
we don’t burn a whole in the fabric of the universe like a magnifying
glass concentrating the suns light onto a piece of paper.

Our binary pasts have been under-labeled as grand and great-grand
when they more aptly would be moving toward giga and terra but
our family lexicon would sure be different if we had megamother and
megafather who were begat by gigamothers and fathers each.

This is nonsense of course but my trying to fully comprehend my family
tree and all its branches which are similar to everyone else’s in
their complexity leaves my mind spinning but knowing that each branch
involves a multiple of two – my mother’s mother and father and

my father’s mother and father and then my mother’s mother’s mother and father and my mother’s father’s mother and father and so on ad infinitum
until we all are more closely related than we want to realize and
all those words about us all being one are seen as true realities

that as a whole we continue to refuse to accept and live with and
look at where that kind of nonsense has gotten us so perhaps my musings
and ramblings are not so crazy after all and all those prophets who claim
our oneness and all of us who know its so can take another deep breath

to exhale fully with relaxed gusto and take in another life-giving gulp
of sustaining air to tune into the frequency of our planet and our fellow
beings in love and harmony and realize that our gods and devils are one
just as we all are in this beautiful and often painful flash we are sharing.