Poems

~Life Pre-TV~

~Kansas After Midnight~ (Hale-Bopp Comet)

So the apples fell,

and Adam bruised easily

as the leaves first cracked.

Eve foresaw the grumbles.

The damn kids heave stones

towards the river, the birds, each other,

and she knew

there'd be days like this:

"But, at least there's seasons!"

Eve chides, hands on hips,

while a sated

snake of paradise

slithers westward from between her feet;

leaves the gate wide open.

~When Joe's Memory Failed Him~

Joe sat down for breakfast

with last night's dream of flying

clearly recollected and then the dream

of climbing a rock of knowledge reoccurred

and the dream of walking naked down

a city street came along then the short dreams

started rolling by. The fraction-of-a-second

dreams flickered across his eyes mind between

the completely out of character and morally

outrageous dreams that caused him to wonder

and worry. The fear dreams

of heights and crimes

came through and then he placed

the barrel in his mouth,

and when the earth turned

a little bit more

the sun shined through the kitchen window

and onto Joe's blood and brains

sprayed all over the walls

and his bowl of Shredded Wheat.

~Treehouse~

If you were a tree

I would want to be the house

held in your arms, and,

as lovers climbed you

to enter me,

they'd hear the birds

sing in your hair,

and kiss

as their legs dangled

from my scrap-wood mouth.

~Prairie~

If you were prairie

and I was grass

devoted to your skin,

mustang and antelope

would pound me into you

as they run wild over your body,

while the occasional fire,

born of lightning-jeweled

nights of merriment,

burned me to ashes.

And though you'd feign sleep

as your body cooled,

your smile,

mottled with my black remains,

would expose your attraction

to tumbleweed rambles

and dust devil flings.

~A Chicago Picnic (1925)~

Seven mobsters

and a pigeon

spread a blanket on the grass.

Their basket contains cheese,

wine, and sourdough French bread

all the way from San Francisco.

"'Frisco fog,

Mr. Capone explains to the pigeon,

is the crucial ingredient of this loaf."

Then Bruno breaks

one of the pigeon's wings,

then breaks

the other.

Louie-the-Face

takes the pigeon to the river.

Mr. Capone

walks alone down a narrow trail

into the trees,

picks up a stick,

to use as a make-believe cane,

while the pigeon's body

floats towards the sea.

~A Glaring Presence~

The moon got huge

and erased all the stars

so you decided

we should leave the pool

and go indoors

to have sex.

And as we did,

light and water

played like little children

in our back yard.

~Cloudburst~

All my friends

are falling from the sky.

The cats

don't like them,

and run inside.

~Christina's Beast~

Christina forgoes the freaks,

all the rides, the dime-toss

towards the carnival glass prize.

She never gives the barkered games

of rings and darts a gamble.

Though she pines for the grower

of award-winning squash,

and would love to help

grow his crookneck,

she's never strolled

his stall of gourds

set beside the strawflowers.

Christina returns to straddle

an up-side-down tub

beside the sow

she hopes the judge

deems fit for blue.

Her thirty-year collection

of runner-up cherryred ribbons

has faded to the pink tint

of her 4-H beast,

the rose cut and doomed

to a diary of squeals and wounds.

~Night Cloud~

I saw a clown,

and the moon was his belly.

He wore a wild smile,

but his stride was so long

his belly couldn't keep up,

so it was left behind.

His head wisped and spread

east east east

as his feet stepped west.

If a clown can't find his way

out of this big-top,

I don't stand a chance.

~Fly~

I watch a fly bang, bang

its green ass

against the naked bulb.

"Goofy bastard."

I say out loud,

then return to my laptop,

and bang,

bang, away.

~Help Wanted: Poet~

to show me

the dead tree,

the new grave,

the last gasp

of the whale,

the first sting

of the wasp,

thunder and wave,

flight,

fire,

love's root

and ash,

the dash,

crawl,

and crash

of the world.

~I Don't Want to Write a Bad Poem For You~

I don't want to write a bad poem for you.

One that is flush with forced rhyme

and passe ideas

scraped from the dirty fingernails

of an unknown whose future

shall remain anonymous.

I don't want to write a bad poem for you,

even though others have,

and others will hand you theirs

and you will love them

as I sit

and revise these lines

over and over again

while the muses

hold their stomachs

in laughter.

~Perhaps the Odd Angel~

All I own would not fill a crate, and my gut

holds neither god nor demon

since the boarding-up of my faith's poor shack.

The demagnetization of the compass my father

left behind as he sailed away on his warship

has nixed my direction. All roads are forked;

lead to air, water, and dirt dead ends.

I cannot worship the trees or rocks or hills

since I've witnessed them being wrecked

and thieved by master hoarders and poets

who speak of silent seas. The sea is never silent

except to those who dwell inland from its smash

and hiss. I'm weary of liars and the love piled

on their images by household sages.

If I could find a timer I would set it. Let its

tick torment those who never want to leave

this year or the next to someone else. The ding

would smack of finality and smooth-faced tombstones

stacked for the engraver's eye and hand. The spark

behind his spectacles, kept bright by his muse,

would blind the naive angel who would try to intervene.

~Loners Don't Cause the Flower's Tremble~

Loners don't cause the flower's tremble;

it's the found who pick them

for the windowed home of temporary light.

Polished suitors hit the shops;

purchase them with plastic cash.

Sheathed or vased, the flowers die

where they're placed by lovers

in a rush to sheets and covers.

They die at the table's center,

the counter's rim,

the bedside stand.

Dimly lit tombs of finished symphonies

have claimed petal and stem, color

and scent, pollen and dew

to honor the composers who,

deaf when they died, must still

be able to see and smell the rose

or wildflower on the grave.

Loners don't cause the flower's tremble,

nor unknown poets

and unrealized compositions

found dead on less than grand pianos.

~Sky Aquarium~

On my back in the grass,

I look up and watch you sway.

There is a song in your head,

and you let a word or two

bubble from your lips

between smiles.

The blue/white white/blue

beyond of your face

gives the impression

I am looking at a sky aquarium.

I want to tap on the glass,

but then you might swim to hide

beneath a porcelain bridge

set in gravel by someone

less inclined

to want you nearer.

~Once a Fool, Always One~

I left my foam Buddha

in the rain,

and when the sun

came out he was

steaming.

~Pac-Man Moon~

a wan pac-man moon

chomps after Venus 'til blue

she's game, and giggles

~The Futility of Solitude~

A black piano,

alone in the rain,

its keys exposed to downpours

makes poetry

that a bird,

dry in the leaves

of a nearby tree

finds questionable,

but the bird's ears are tweeked,

its eyes, open,

while a new spark

in its tiny mind

gives rise

to a rare note

heard by no one,

because there's nothing

but a piano

and its bad poem

within earshot

as the rain plinks on.

~Outsource Ours~

Please send this mundane job to India.

I don't want to do it anymore.

There's a tree limb that extends

out over a nearby lake

large enough for me to sit

and daydream from. Please

send my lover's work to China

so she may join me on the branch.

With her voice, my words, we'll try to sing

the philosophy of the birds. Please

send all the gold offshore. There's nothing

I want to buy. Automobiles and malls

frighten me and the deer,

and I think it would be grand

if the gross domestic product

of the United States of America

were to be happy people and beasts.

~Tatted Stems~

Emerald island visions drift

behind your eyes as you needle lace

into snowflakes that will never fall

nor melt like the last summer days of us.

We once held moments; fingers

entwined to form the vase.

Flowers atremble in our hands,

their petals just a phase.

Perhaps they knew the color

of our fate and theirs,

and how the winter wind

may tat the stems, take

them starward for us to find

strewn about our paradise.

~The Morning After With Pancakes~

"I love pancakes." I said.

"I love pancakes, too." She said.

"Please pass the syrup." I said.

"Here ya go." She said as she handed me the bottle.

"I need butter first." I said.

"Yes, melt the butter on the pancakes first." She said.

"I need a fork." I said.

"Oh, yeah, you do." She said.

She got up out of her seat,

went to the kitchen,

and returned with a fork.

I began eating the pancakes. The butter

had melted superbly, and she poured

the syrup carefully, and my gut

got full, and the sun was out

and shining through the window onto

our breakfasts as though

the 4th of July, Christmas, Thanksgiving,

and all the birthdays on Earth

were on our plates at the same time

and we were eating them

as one and they were

perfect.

~A Plane Crashes Into Mother~

Her bullwhip whirls in the kitchen air

as a cow looks with disapproval

at the leather-clad milkman and madness

just inside the door.

Mom's yellow face dims the sunrise

on days like this. With my report card in hand

she ransacks mementos sent by dad

for a pen to initial grades of failure.

Joe, the plumber pulls into the driveway,

readies his snake and plunger,

but they'll remain unsoiled.

Our neighbor'll never finish mowing his lawn.

A cat shrieks. The sparrows splatter

against potted plants. A sewing machine

bursts, sends needles flying through the house

as the Cessna's fuel explodes, turns my sisters

into single-parent children. I get shipped

to Michigan to live in a house that reeks

of the elderly and a piano in decomposition

beneath a painting of burning trees.

~Evolution of a Neighbor~

Flight may have been

the final refuge of the dinosaur.

An old neighbor in her bamboo blind

considers the theory, as seeds

tossed around her yard lure

finch and sparrow descendants

of down-sized monsters who perch

within inches of her frame, bent

and shorter since the time she sang

and whimmed by night;

flinched through work by day.

The birds leave as she stands,

walks across her lawn. Stops

to curse weeds grown thick

where tar pits may have irked

her slope-browed and wingless kin.

----------------------

~Something Beautiful~

It could be grand

for something beautiful to happen,

but I would rather hear

a piano

tumble down

the stairs

than to have "I love you"

hummed into my ear

by someone who'd fail to see

I'm with this thunderstorm right now.

~View From a Starbucks~

Rain won't slow the cell-phoned suits

or pop-and-beer-can scroungers

while cardboard pleas for handouts

compete with potholes

sunk by the jerk and shimmy

of the city's non-negotiable fault.

The boom-bred girl of the corner knows

of no kind monkeys. The one she sticks

into her tattooed ankle

bites and twists. She tilts

back her head, open-mouthed,

tries to tongue drops

of junk-ill sky

as the sidewalk tune of the unknown minstrel

is blown or strummed towards Puget Sound

to be caught in the pigeon's filthy craw,

sucked into a cup of la-dee-da latte,

or falls to the crumbs

of another nice try.

~Babes and the Badman~

Babes who hold hands with the badman

may become getaway drivers

or lookouts

or prostitutes

for the badman's interests.

And when the badman

is hanged

or burned

or riddled with bullets

the babes cease to be, too.

But sometimes,

when they are fortunate,

the babes are reduced to portraits

or songs

or statues

or a poem,

like this one.

~In On the Outs~

Sundown moths,

thick as bees,

pounce, pounce upon

your lilac trees.

I miss

the horse

in your pasture.

Fish

in your pond.

Cow

in your freezer.

I stroll down Main Street.

Pan gutter and swidewalk

for lost dime or quarter.

Do the pick-a-penny bend

while

sundown men,

finger-thick,

bang, bang your lilac bush.

Brush cheek. Tickle neck.

~No Means No. Spring Means Yes.~

Yes, she can hear you,

Mr. Meadowlark, and yes,

yes, oh yes, she knows.

~Match.com Reject~

I want a woman who will bury

her own dog when it dies.

She'll shovel through sod;

jab through the blood-brown roots.

Rocks will cause her

to curse like a prospector.

And when she's

just about through,

I'll shuffle to the kitchen

and fetch two brews.

Her tears

will have stopped by then.

~Joe's Bad Day~

The botched execution

troubled Joe's mind as he drove home.

The condemned caught fire

in the electric chair.

Reporters,

and other witnesses,

saw the whole thing.

It wasn't pretty.

Joe told himself

he would do a better job

next time,

and as he pulled

into his driveway

he cursed, remembering

he was supposed to stop

for milk and bread.

~Moving Day~

blue through the window

blue through the window

morning sun hardwood floor

so cold

so cold

there you go

to the shell-white door

the shell-white door

you've turned the knob

the room is empty

nothing to throw

in your path but

nothing to throw

in your path

but the towel you

the towel you

dried off with

after your shower

leaving filthy.

~Back to the Flies~

Now, back to the flies I mentioned over on the coast

as you left for the other side of the hill: It's easier

to embrace them if thought of as tiny birds who buzz

through neon and time squandered on restaurant tables.

I have since departed for the high Sierras

where squirrels forage above my friend,

the Blood of Hearts, as he dances to the beat

of Gemini drums; twin tom-toms bought where Venus scores

her glorious lipstick. She's unaware of the tragic citation

stuck to the forehead of the Jack-of-used-cars she's

been screwing. He had blown her away

as he tongued his harp at the Shut-Up-and-Sing

Bar and Grill. Loosley translated:

to her it's always Friday and drunk inside and out.

"Taurus!" yells the political hopeful to the Watchtower hawker

in search of readers bent on catching a bus for the track.

"Your Zodiac is a bunch of Taurus!" The political hopeful

lost three states the day before, and his wife won't quit

her job to put him back together. She calls him "Doctor"

as he practices the saxophone

she bought for him last Christmas.

But, back to the flies I mentioned over on the coast:

I found one had drowned in your half-empty wineglass.

Its soaked wings could no longer carry a tune.

Its eyes drunk-blind in red, I left it for the busboy

to bury in the back. The ceiling fan hummed,

and the air it moved played with Pancho's hair

as he looked back at me over his shoulder,

saw the sun go down directly behind my head

as I watched his favorite waitress bend over

to pour her one-millionth cup of coffee,

leaving room for sugar and cream.

~Sand~

The breakwalled harbor

holds sea-locked lives

as docklines stretch, then sag,

stretch, then sag

on the moon-sucked surge.

Mary tends a seaside bar, mends wounds,

dodges brawls. She escorts

the drowned and found to their graves.

The drowned and lost

langour in her dreams.

Fuel-dock Harry

rolls out hose, tops-off tanks,

ices the holds. Corporate pockets

take the cash. Harry

shut it down one day

with a two-barrel blast in his shack.

Harbor master Jim, widowed

now, patrols the dusk-dim

moorings abob in his wake

as complaints of gulls

land on cormorants black as dread.

They dive, beak death

to minnows and silver needlefish.

Bouy bells clong and clang

socked in a shawl of fog.

A raft of kelp, with its crew of flies,

shades a shale-toothed reef

as I watch phosphorescent swells

pilfer the helpless shore,

and this saddens me at times,

as I walk the beach,

feel the sand,

the mountain it had been,

being pulled from around my feet

to lie forever beyond the light.