I "should" have foreseen the dreadful
error of my ways
the gypsy fortune teller
in the machine
said

at times the backwards
sway
cotton candy
and alligators

for the arbitrary basket
of fate
fate is where you find it
what did you put in the basket?

VYL
63 Ford Fairlane
echofisk three
indian store batik ceiling
marantz tape deck under the drivers seat
blaupunkt speakers on the back
also covered with batik; hidden
suspension kind of low
car weighed A TON
all metal and steel
drove to Santa Cruz
1978
also Oregon that summer
in the drizzly sunshine
listening to Blood on the Tracks
and Old and In the Way tape
my sister made
stoned
smoked a lot of pot
driving
in the HEAVY rain
on hwy 17
cars going 75 mph
round great long round curves
past hwy 9
the old highway
at one point I had an sx 70
and took little square polaroids
everything analog except fortran nerds
and IBM and Lawrence Radiation Lab
punch cards and printer paper
drawing floating race cars
on computer printer paper
no computers in the hand on the wrist in your ass
like right now
was that better
uh stupid
driving to west Cliff
and Seabright
down to the garden mall
listening to jazz on sundays and smoking clove cigarettes
drinking white wine in the hot sun
playing guitar
jamming out
ROCK

on the divorced branch
of memnonic memory
ghost memory
staccato rythmn and blues
in "ghost DOG, ghost LOAD
Pussy Juice
Ghost allegory
of the chant
the chant of ghosts
(in the corners);
that's where they hide
look for them in the corners
they make you do strange
things or not - mostly not
Ghost hunger
ghost toast
with Ghost butter
ghost stories
you know those
how he left because
there was drinking to be done somewhere else
ghost rhymes
with ground zero
ghost is the most
we leave the laundry
and stare at the TV
"ghosts found in attic- want to be left alone."

Morgan Territory Road
where the dry grass is all that grows
the sun too hot the water too
nonexistent
sink a well 200 feet
one hill has scrub;
Brushy Peak
I thought he said Bushy Pig
"Bushy pig."
no trees on these rolling hills
no shadow side
just a winding road through white hot
cattle pastures
cattle pastures that have been cattle pastures for two hundred years
so long the cattle,
with their grazing, have carved ridges every ten inches or so
latitudinally across every hill side

we rolled joints maybe ten of them and
listened to Emerson Lake & Palmer's
electronic keyboard prog rock album
of a giant armadillo tank battling mountains
and human face scorpions
we were all trying to pass a joint to
someone who already had one.
We all wore blue jeans i think