adrift aplenty

boat in the water 

you're no Rimbaud

The Red Seasons

aren't in your life

The seasons are a mirage

a temperate mirage

  of nothing 

Lovely day

but the rest of the country has arctic windows

time for a walk - out

of this lovely flower pond

 Green decay

in your old eyes

too much sugar in your blood

  Blah blah blah

    Life goes on

but the rain doesn't 

oh it stop and starts

  You can hear the sirens

   the sound of someone coughing downstairs 

   You light a cigarette 

   And think

 you need to quit

   or at least slow down 

and then you wonder

  why that young redhead showed you her legs

  her lips were red too

 the brown acid

was not made for you

Axolotl- climb the death steps

  a river of gravy

    climb the euphoric stations

      in Sawtooth Mountains

     the stony night - so cold

 but you stayed awake

    to chase those beasts

      you couldn't eat poorly cooked trout

     or you wouldn't- too smelly

    but the wine was good

      and the stars spoke not a word

        

 The road

was made for you

to drive

early mornings

suns coming up

hot large coffee

  and a breakfast sandwich

Egg bacon cheese on an English Muffin

  time to say

See ya! to wherever you were

BUH-bye!

Going somewhere else

  that ain't here

 Clair Voyant stars 

   what did the moose say to the sky?

I'm a gopher for your love

 or something

 I don't know

Do I look like a goddamn Tule Elk?

Maybe a little

  Let's swim across 

Tomales Bay

  to Dillon Beach 

  Eat steamed crabs

drink shots of vodka

    and climb sand dunes

like Val Kilmer

  in some rock and roll movie 

about LA

 I had no reason to

to be despondent 

except everything

Was it me?

or everything?

I'm gonna go with everything

Otherwise I might have problems

Wait, does that fall under everything?

Too confusing

fuck it

 I slept with a poet

  Actually Spoken Word poet

so the heck what

burn it down she said 

 Devil Night street wanderer

 in Detroit

Burn it down

  she said 

of Market street

in San Francisco

  this was the nineties

drugs was big

and it was a cold blustery winter

Burn it down

I burned old chairs 

In the fireplace

for heat

 A grievous 

summer in shorts

  Worn out sneakers

    black Herman Hermits glasses

 twice repaired

drawings of Cornelius Snigglepop

  and various choppers

a la Easy Rider

  I don't remember a god damn thing 

except what's in the photos

or old drawings

amazing I still have this crapola

See the future 

Be the future!

 

 I traveled 

the sunny side 

  bacon over freeway

     to harrumph harrumph

     emptiness was my thought  

   but it twerent to be

   scrub and sage and politics in black rocks 

one valley after the next

  slightly different 

in rock color or shrub shades

  Hues I couldn't or wouldn't bother

  to describe

signs were a welcome distraction

 at least I knew what highway 

I was on

 

 Saffron dream 

in enticed 

  direction

   of flamboyant 

      lions and letters

         in the sidewalk rain writing 

     you start

but is a cyclical pattern

   of perpetual meandering

 Oaks and hiways 

  stand down son

    Your 32-20 is not without effect

    you go on 

past the prime

   past the river 

      past the dream

to another world

  unlike this one

for now

 

 The year 

I graduated from high school my buddy and I decided to do a road trip to Oregon. We loaded up the Ford with camping equipment, guitars, and plenty of weed. I couldn't tell you exactly where we went. Too many years ago and too much pot smoke. My sister had given me a cassette tape with Blood on the Tracks on one side (or some of it) and Old and in The Way on the other side. 

We didn't know Oregon was so wet. There was a lot of rain. We were at an Oregon beach and it was apparent that you could drive on the beach. Cool we thought. But a 63 Ford Fairlane with suspension compromised (it was basically a low rider) was not the ideal vehicle. We got about ten feet and became horribly stuck in the sand. 

Fuck! After about an hour a park ranger pulled up in a jeep with a winch on front. Oh cool he'll pull us out. Nope. He saw our California license plate and proceeded to tell us what idiots we were. He had a small folded shovel and he gave it to us and told us to dig ourselves out and then he drove off. We tried but the tires were pretty much sunk in sand all the way. Then another jeep came by. We told them the park ranger had been here and what he'd done.

"He didn't pull you out? He left that stupid little shovel and left? What an asshole. We'll pull you out."

Five minutes later we were back on the road. We considered keeping the shovel but left it in the sand where the car had been. The Ranger was probably surprised when he came back and we were gone.

 On First Street

there was Western wear shop called Baughman's. Outside the shop they had a full size plastic horse. One day I walked down to the bus turnaround to get the morning bus to school. The plastic horse was there. I thought that's weird. What's that doing there? I don't remember if I told anyone and it stayed there a couple days and then it was back in its regular spot on First Street. It went out for a little saunter I thought.

Thirty years later I went in and told them the story. The lady working there said they try to steal it all the time. She said just last week a woman in a wheelchair hooked the horse cart (it's on a wheeled platform) to her wheelchair and was pulling it down the street. They had to chase after her.

 One day

my dad showed me a pistol. It was a .32 Colt Police Special. He said it had been my grandfathers and he showed me where he kept it and where he kept the bullets. He said don't ever shoot it because it's old and it might blow up. 

The next day after school I took out the pistol and loaded it up. I thought this gun looks fine it's in good shape there's no rust or anything. Outside I aimed at a 2x2 wood stake about 30 feet away. BLAM! I put a hole right in the middle. There's nothing wrong with that gun. Took the bullets out and put it back in its "hiding" place. (Dads dresser)

 My sister had a car. 

It was 1963 Ford Fairlane with four doors and a straight six engine. It must have never been garaged because the California sun had reduced the paint to a battleship grey primer looking color. You couldn't really say what color it had originally been.

A guy at the lab was moving and had offered my dad the car for $150. Dad said no. The day before the guy was moving dad offered him $25. The guy took it. Dad brought it home and we pulled the spark plugs. Three of them were totally carboned up. It had been running on three cylinders.

My sister pulled out the rotting ceiling of the car and replaced it with a CostPlus batik. Very hippy cool. She called the car Vyl because those were the letters on the license plate. 

Years later she went off to college and I got the car. I painted an ironic racing stripe on the hood and a stencil of John Lennon screaming on the drivers side door. Then I bolted a cassette player to the floor beneath the seat on the drivers side and put two Blaupunkt speakers on a wood board and covered them with a thin batik fabric and put them behind the back seat by the back window. I had a $150 stereo system in a $25 car. 

 Her house

was like a museum to my adolescence. Everything was the same. Same chairs, tv, stereo, pictures on the wall. I was thirteen when we moved. Seven and a half miles out. Not so great for my social life. We lived past the school bus turnaround spot. I walked to where it turned around and got let off at the same spot. In September the mornings were cold but in the afternoon it was hot. The hills had some scrub trees but mostly just dried out grass. There had been low grade coal mines years ago and a small town about a mile away. You could still make out the word K-OLA on the hillside, made with white rocks. The folks across the road had a ramshackle house and lots of barns and out buildings and old vehicles and tractors in different states of decay. They had the banks old stagecoaches and would load them up in a big rig and drive all over the state to participate in parades, fairs and wherever the bank wanted them. 

It was pretty deadsville. I smoked pot and listened to records and tried to play along with my guitar. But my ears weren't so good. When I was young the Beatles all sounded the same. I couldn't tell one from the other. 

My dad was kind of a cheapskate. He was an engineer but we had no air conditioning and in the summer it was hot. He had bulldozed into the hill when we built the house and the bottom floor had ceramic tiles to try to stay cool. The well water smelled like sulfur. He'd put a filter system in but it still smelled funny. I had no friends that lived anywhere near me. 

When they bulldozed the hill they found a Native American skeleton and some stone tools for crushing acorns. 

 

 

 I grieved

archaic dreams of

   So what and who the heck

but it doesn't matter

  To trees

or sap or anything

Why

 do I bother

   when life is for living

     Everybody's got problems

 Cleo einsteined her way into the far reaches of space

Not really. Just made that up. I thought it would be cool. But she did Nefertiti her way into the local bar. So

ya know there's that. She ordered an Egyptian Pyramid. Steppe or smooth asked the bartender. 

 Great gobs of gumballs

Speed yr way to the wah wah

Please oh please me sounds like

baby shrews mewling or squeaking or

Whatever they do Mount Lyell used

To have a glacier gone now? I dunno

Picture in the glacier wearing non North Face 

clothes she climbed up there 1973 ? Something

Like that 

 It was

or was it, did we really, but no it DID exist,

and now we've descended into madness

Every day there's more and more 

Greed and Avarice and it 

wants more

More and more

  clinging to the edges we hold on

  Or not 

  We fell long 

   Ago 

    And now

      Here we are

  

 Great leaf brogue

    split by two in a shy bumblebee

trapped by the window

housemate gave it a name

 I pushed him and he didn't like it

  -buzzed loudly

"Oh, you pissed him off!"

"I'm TRYING TO HELP HIM!"

  but he found the window 

and flew off

 

 

 

 I'm so bored

I really don't know what to do with myself

I wonder if my meds make me anxious? 

Cuz somethings wrong

People shouldn't live like this

I don't why I do

 The excelsior of cadavers

was imbued with notary qualifications 

primed and eviscerated

   releasing great gas clouds 

with notable traces

    and feudal implications

      egregious crowds bantered for his time

      but there was none

      He crowed like a rooster

       Their purchasing power were all they had

        but it was ignored for late night TV

 

 

 

 The arch-centric cadaver

Basking in a golden hue

   Ordering concentric circles

      Of increasing remuneration 

His death left none disfigured

No appendages torn

Or braced by fear

  Merely laughed at slight-ness

A chapter torn from the book

And wandered further into night

 Carols and dreams

in a frozen wasteland;

your eyes looked out on a bloody hand

you went through the portal

to another time

You thought 

This is okay

But you did not know

It was an old Volkswagen dune buggy daydream

 

 The bombs blew like the Santa Ana winds

We drove Mulholland drive until we ran out of gas.

Then we got some from a shady black guy in an old Malibu. Then we went and had pie and coffee. I forget the name of the place. It was pretty good.

 There were thirteen tynes 

Railed up

barricaded in a Japanese cave

He had one grenade

They told him to use it on himself

If it came to that

But he buried it and had sake and rice for dinner

 Sweat and mazeltov

Well I don't know

But it's gotta be so

He said it's proof; all things that happen were meant to happen, it proves they were meant to happen. 

And I thought jeez you're an idiot. Please stop. But he wouldn't. He was meant to be an idiot.

 

 

 

 There was no memory

 Like a retrieved tennis ball

I had a dream but I forget

 I woke up to cold air

Grey and overcast

I'm sorry

But here's the thing...

Ah never mind

Prolly wouldn't make a difference 

Any how 

 Broached 

    Into the 

crying river of Eton

  God's gift

   to the rafted breach

   Of brown eyed 

black hair-

   We had it so good!

 but the pause prevailed

at the Spanish Steps

   

 Bald Eagle Train

 

 The pizza public

Consumed themselves and 

then had to go bad or couldn't go

Same difference 

 They chewed themselves sideways and upside down

claiming they are delicious

   But puked up at the moment

Hid it from all 

So good!

Next time we'll get pepperoni 

Said Mrs Longpig

 You roam the nowhere highway

In yer brain

A thousand pleas fer

Help

but it ain't coming

Better figure it out son

 Times a tickin' 

Land of Oz

  There's no place like home

But home is long gone

But this will have to do

Fer now

 Truculent

    like snooze a Rama

Bodhi Buddha smile

  Sitting on a nowhere

   Playing eyes with noonday dirt

    Grinning

   ear to ear

  Like Sam Spade

grinning

In San Francisco 

   not like 

A vapor

   Trail of emptiness

Shadow of a shadow of

   Empty harvest

      Gone 

  Buh bye

 Got nowhere to be

'Cept where I is 

Got nothing to say

 'cept crotchetty doodle

Got nothing to do 

'cept what's with that

Got a load of shit

Piling up too high

My oh my

 It's cold

Overcast and the fog is in off the ocean

A giant red dog

Is outside

Howling at the Wolf Moon

AAAHHHH-WOOOOOOO!

 Boom!

caught in a trap

did anyone help?

hard to say-

build it?

or get out of it?

again, hard to say

 

 

 Green grass

smells so good

laying out on a sunny day

around the world people are dying

but here it's pretty nice

 

 It's not my fault

Really. 

Why do I feel bad about it?

Am I a fucking loser?

Maybe

But fuck it.

 Greed harvests the blood

On a simple day

Your shirt looks nice

Clean and pressed

Your shoes shine

  What's the agenda?

   What's for lunch?

    Who are we eating today?

 Plowed on the morrow 

Tis disdain of life's complacency 

don't be angry he said

It steals your time

But that's you he said as he fingered the tennis racquet 

One set or two?

 Grover ran the meat wagon. On Thursdays he had his day off and he would wash his clothes and do some shopping. He drove a 72 Bel Air that his father left him when he passed away from emphysema. His dad didn't smoke but Grover was a pack a day kind of guy. His girlfriend didn't really like it and she tried to get him to quit but no go-Grover stuck to the smokes. Grover had quit school when his dad died and started working to make money for his mom and little sister, Andra. He liked his job. He got up very early, loaded the truck and delivered meat to different markets in town. He was done by three o'clock and he'd take a nap or listen to a ball game on the radio. His girlfriend said he should try to get a GED and then go to night school. Grover thought about it some and wondered what he wanted to do. I like driving the meat truck- why would I change it? Lately the town had gone a little downhill and things weren't quite as safe as they had been. Grover didn't worry though- I got no cash. I guess they could steal the meat but it's kinda heavy and cold. So he didn't worry about it. 

 If you get a Waymo can you sit in the drivers seat?

Or the trunk.

 Green tea

on the mountain

    book in hand

  leather boots

      nowhere man

       following stacks 

 to reach

  Outward

      beyond the mountain

      rocks and dirt

      and Doug Fir

        burning 

          across the river

            Blah blah blah

     What's on another channel?

  Hand me the Doritos. 

  Yum

 the dream

of a booze free 

    skein with dire wolves

in tow

  climbing the rocks

    climbing the stairs

      fingers rubbed to the gnome

   casual embrace 

     of the Bumble

        welcome to the island

       the dungeon awaits

   

 

 The foreshadowed entropy

took him bit by bit

    the elevator took him to the 34th floor

     He took a Valium and rolled the dice

        Back it said 

           Back down to

Your every day life

 Where is the Marsh King?

Lost

in years gone by

All that's left is a crimson hat

Shoes made of the hide of swamp rats 

and a book from AA

 I borrowed

    and bent over

my plate glass thingy 

      stood 

    to a bark

See ya later!

 What is the resident questioning?

Turn off your mind

  Compelling work

Proactive 

BLT

  MOOTAR?

policies

  Blue state 

Plastic 

A bunch of states!

your policy

that valuation

On or Off?

sorry

 The Agenda

 

 Escribe me dandelion

    a zbigniew of times motion

the Cold War liveth 

in Mr. Ed's reruns

  escribe 

     escribe 

        Escribe 

   and how the fuck are you?

   Oh so sorry

  my French runneth over

  merde!

    time for espresso 

and a cherry cigar 

     Pine sap and me are kicking it

   In the lost forest

   of night

Say Your Words!

Oh dapper dan 

   Say your train signal sighs 

 Reunited with passion

Where is it though?

Stacks of 

    You know what

    Getting dusty

  What a mess!

   Ah screw it

  Oh 

    Keep that

 What was I thinking?

Put it next to those 

I'll deal with it later 

 Straight 

or not

           Nope

                        the stars are out there

          life goes on

            time is 

         a 20 mile borax mule

         grinning and thirsty

         in Death Valley

 Time is ticking

and there's nowhere 

To go to be except who knows

Make some grits and coffee

It's morning

 The green 

of your eyes

    Is gospel to the thirsty

       great cathedrals

      of beauty

        riding backseat dreams

           high on marijuana 

              and wondering 

                where the heck are we going?

 Some days

Aren't real

Made up

Ginsberg-ian 

Nabokov-ian 

I'm trying to quit smoking but I'm not doing so great

At least I've cut back!

Only problem is my sense of smell has improved

But let's concentrate on the positive

 I wish I had a yesterday

I could choose

I'm sure it's not like I remember

the sun would be different 

The asphalt would be new and fresh and smooth

Grass would be green

Not like today

The burning leaves in New England

Would mark your minutes

the colors of the jerseys had sublime meaning

Red and black

Red and white

Red and gray

 Eternal nothingness

is such a pain

In the ass

dream on fucker

reality is a sweet biscuit of car crashes

In a beautiful car

  While you're holding a bottle of orange juice

  Pretending it's whiskey 

   A mouse chewed through your brake lines

    and the cliff approaches  oooh

 Twin settings;

fires in America

Planes getting hit by drones 

good looking teenagers taking selfies

with burning homes behind them

Tik Tok dance moves

to destruction

 Groveling noise;

Escuche me

  daffodil please don't park

  on my foot,

  fucker 

 

 

 down the boogey funk-a-teria 

into the whispering background photo
I thought I saw a rabbit bound 
from an abandoned trailer
I played a scratchy record
Lady Gaga 
Disco Heaven
there were still two hands 
until sundown
someone told me there were three types of columns
Doric Ionian and Corinthian
he lived in Bath, England until they 
ran him out and he had 
to go to the States.
He went to Texas of all places
I put on another record 
this one had never been played 

 Myriad;

    rescind benign 

YOU are the exclamation disaster  

    you read about online

       It's YOU!

Hah!

 I'm losing them! 

dropping like flies! The Lords and Ladies!

Over a plane noise flew

Bars and bars and sandpipers 

Sleep without noise 

The tinkling of glass

And bottles of beer

 And bottles of whiskey

   And bottles of Gin

Sleep without care 

In the world 

   Tomorrow won't be any different-

  

 the crystal tears

   splattered a rainbow

Throw the piles

queen in blood red roses

Dream of tarantulas

   the tower was dark stone corn

Remind me who cares-

  But the Billy goat-

Bleated in your eyes-

   Are we mutually exclusive on acid?

 He wanted to buy a pistol-

an old vintage automatic

but he worried;

I'll just shoot someone!

 I grieve;

a moment, a corner

of my stupid self-

pretending I am someone

who shakes the wind

 Cream

   brakes

still potion

       On baked potatoes 

moo like a Trump cow

       an African in Greenland

is a curious book

     snake cult!

 "They're ain't no green"

"Hasbro, what are you talking about?"

A car drove by

They kept watch

But nothing was going on

"I'm hungry"

"Have a smoke."

 Larimer Caesar

Fiddling with senator doggies on 

a dusty plain

Comanche and tortilla eaters

   On the side

 foghorns blowing in SF morning

thick and piercing

concrete wet see the sky

From a dirty apartment 

 Jesus had a broken back

but it was okay because he thought he didn't really exist.

"They made me up to satisfy their extreme guilt"

He joked with the disciples. 

 I'm trying not

to smoke or drink

it feels okay 

 Strife;

a brown brow

syncopated cheese balls

aloof and beautiful 

walk the steps Bertrand 

 

 myriad; rejoinder

   Castles burning

73 bootleg

  

 Myriad;

     sniff 

delay

    Top of the News

 Kill

  Drink coffee

    What time is it

  See ya!

 Cross-eyed pimpled 

Oily retard in blue denim jacket

Stealing gas from a Honda accord

"Let's go get high, motherfucker!"

 a pristine 

record album

I'd say never played

original 

somewhere in South Portland 

ME

 The Atlantic Porn

Great swaths of bilious seawater

Incredible scary fish w open mouth

giant teeth

A raft

A dingy

Red sky at noon

Sailors balloon

 a large bowl; a basin

sans opiates 

the Nefertiti of Rimbaud

shot in the wrist by Verlaine

Le Bateau Ivre 

storming and raining 

a large bowl; a basin

 

 What sorry dreams

Sweet casual and 

lurid 

  clad in corduroy like a pontoon boat

     Afraid 

  of nothing   

but time

   and Spanish Steps

   Whiskey and chiffon

      Bent metal

       broken shotgun

     Cigarettes and frosty am's

       Say goodbye to Seville

       get on the plane

and try to sleep

 I strove 

For an inept self

and succeeded drastically

Piles upon piles

Laid to the foundations

Teetering on decaying hopes

the surf pounding unrelentingly 

battering away 

day by day 

Night after night

Minute by minute