I awoke as a large eel in a TikTok
And chipmunks covered in snow
Saved me as well as an elk's family
The elk stayed and played the chipmunk
A tune by farting
I was enthralled!
(Sorry I'm a jerk)
Friday, December 29, 2023
I captured space
A hundred billion galaxies
Belonged to me
Loki was there but he kept out
He tried to warn me
But he was a trickster
And I chained him to a crystal
Beshownd ExCravitii!
My luck ran out
But it was a good run
The power of Ambient Dream Waves
Was no joke
Nikola Tesla knew it
I spent my final years
Exiled like Ovid
To a rocky exonosphere field
Living off Plutarchian snails
And Stratos artichokes
The Scorpion Tattoo Empire
Was created in a long ago
Hilly place grass was always green like you
Three Mayan young men gave me a language lesson
Poc Toc Noc
Hat Shirt Pants
Or something
Three guys, one had a crude large scorpion tattoo
On his fat arm
The ground was actually very flat
With rivers underground in the limestone
Cenotes with such pure clean water
Skylight from above a giant circular hole
This was the beginning
Of the
Scorpion Tattoo Empire
Thursday, December 28, 2023
San Francisco Blues #5
Say do you have a dime
"Can I marry your girlfriend?"
Old black Wino
"Hardware" store between 16th and 17th
On Valencia
Had large white buckets
Filled with old nuts and bolts
Another had various old screws by the hundred
El Toro was there on the corner
Man!, those were some good steak burritos!
A meal with chips
After working all day
In the financial district
Selling books
Taking inventory
Watching for Art Book thieves
In a tie and buttoned shirt
Like a Dickens novel
Mindi the manager
From Modesto
I'd order books occasionally
Buying books on
Paris
In the Twenties
The Assistant manager
Was a serious young man
With a French wife
He ate popcorn that he made at home
With his special seasonings
Cayenne pepper and salt
Or Turmeric
The shipping guy in the basement was an oddball
- took all the deliveries down there
And knew more about old movies than anyone
I've ever met
He could go on and on about thirties movie
Actors and actresses
To the point of wtf
Haha
He should have written a book!
Weird brainiac employees
Jonathan Eckman
So knowledgeable about books
The Poet guy
Weird
I was the guy who bought egg nog and brandy
For holiday cheer
And played Elvis Costello albums
And Tom Waits albums over the store loudspeakers
San Francisco Blues
Another
Time things
Were different
Oak street Apartment
With a view of the back alley
No tv
Wtaf no stereo
Just quiet
Dusty boredom
But we made spaghetti
And read Camus The Plague
And Beckett Happy Days
I heard they got kicked out
Because she was a property owner
In Napa Valley
And used it as her city place
It was a tiny place
But nice
San Francisco Blues
At 3rd & Townsend
The red brick drinker
Talks about negroes
In overalls
Like an old stool
Paint chips
And fluoride
Brain scans
Moving the teeth in
A sofa-like conversation
Around the liquor store
"Bobs in jail
For punching that stop sign
A hundred times!"
The bus is 9x
To San Bruno
We da pimple
Fugettin me naught
Say the story
Are you?
Tuesday, December 26, 2023
There was no tomorrow
His head was full.
Books crowded out the political pain
He sought relief
But where?
Buddha sutras kinda helped
But let's be real
He had chicken Tikka Massala and rice
At an empty Indian place on Irving.
There was only the one guy working
When he asked for a bag for leftovers
The guy asked if he wanted more for later
First he said no because no one ever does that
But then he said what the heck thanks
The guy was nice
He filled it up
Jesus owned a 63 Malibu SS
With Fuely heads and glass packs
"I wish the guys could all squeeze in but
they'll need to get their own rides. That Judas sure has a sweet
Duster. That sparkle orange paint job!"
He thought as he pulled into the First Street Jack in the Box.
"Hey, isn't that Mary?!"
Mary was making out with some strange dude in a shiny yellow Impala with chrome side pipes.
I was the right ready
But my eyes
Were askew
Too many pills
At midnight
My thoughts were on sweat
And nervousness
Definitely not a good time
The balance lay in somewhere
Outside my reach
Two roads diverged
But my roads always
Converged
To the habit trails
Like a man climbing
The stairs
Wishing for forgiveness
Redemption
The Neon Checkered Past
Of the wonder
Strapped to his thoughts
An armadillo
In the road
Watching the white lines
Praying to the god of small bugs
Grubs and tubers
Wearing a Goodwill sport coat
With a red handkerchief in the pocket
Handing out Christmas presents
Bought at Kunokuniya
A colorful strange origami book
A book on Ikegai
Kitty pins that say Nope
Or Meh
Or Hello
Sunday, December 24, 2023
The score was nil
Betrayal was a thing
The fly ointment man was another thing
Basements were filled with losers
The agent was not well known
He's Beat. Burned up!
Joe moved to Mexico
Don't try to talk to him he'll flop in a parking lot
Who
Black eye jim
He used to drink so much he'd always be sleeping
We had no use for the youngsters
They didn't seem to care
Or they cared too much
Some measure of fluid bygones
Erased by chalk dust the memnonic thought
Is not a pathway a gateway drug
To the rest home blizzard
More like a snowplough opening the road
Salt rusts the car
And the underbelly decays
You scrape ice from the windows
And slide into a snow Bank
But it's open for business
on Xmas eve
And you tell the snowman teller to put
The money in the bag
His rock eyes stare
And his carrot nose is well preserved
He says nothing
Later you decide to make a snow angel
Saturday, December 23, 2023
Friday, December 22, 2023
The dreams left in order
You had no memory
Of who you were
Your days were a mystery
To everyone who cared
And that was pretty much no one
The manager of days was sleeping in a Jean Giono novel
It was a man in a small village in France
Smoking a pipe
And asking for a bottle of red wine
But the pistol lay hidden
In the barley
And he shit himself
Oops
I've got no flutaphones
No plastic recorders
At Oyster River School
I dealt heroin in second grade
Come see me at the Jungle Jim
There was a sunken baseball field
Near the forest
I was playing catcher
When a kid got hit in the head by a baseball bat
Like any good catcher I took charge
Tried to walk him to the school
But that nurse, an ugly fat whore of a bitch, came running up and yelled at me
"You're not SUPPOSED TO MOVE HIM"
I'm in second grade you cunt!
There's still blood on my glove
That we used as a home plate
And I'm 63 years old
A bearded fool
Was not in sync
With Buddha
In Cambodia or
Anywhere for that matter
He roamed the bars of LA
Talking to just about anybody
About Cicero
Or W. Somerset Maugham
People ignored him
He was boring
"What's his problem?"
"Who does he think he is?"
"I think he's kinda cute."
He didn't like Henry Miller
Which was odd
"I don't care I still think he's hot!"
He published 4 novels and ten books of poetry
The landlord just wanted the f'ing rent
He played the horses and banged on a typewriter
All night long
The mirror broke
A thousand ways
In beer cans and flotillas
Stack the pizza pies to Napoli
In fire wood fire ovens in the streets
Break the gypsy's thumbs
Over a piece of cardboard
And $15 in travelers checks
The seats are hard
And the train is too hot
Trying to sleep with a family in black
Outside Linz
Smokers are everywhere
Cafe mit brot
For breakfast
The wanderer
Lives to torment
His pain is such that it tempers
Everything he sees or hears
Thus he is justified in his torment
He says things that are not true
But does he truly believe them?
Or is it just that his suffering shades his reason
Until only he knows the truth
The truth of his lies
It speaks again and again and again
Over and over
Every day
Thursday, December 21, 2023
The kale
Of
Another passing
Like Eurocentric
Waves
Of peas
And doorbells ringing
In the early am
Usually a sign that the Sheriffs Dept
Is trying to deliver
Frozen vegetables
And chunks of ham
They say we do this
Every day
Okay well is there any toast
Or English muffins?
Or some Irish Breakfast Tea
That would be lovely
Gents
Wednesday, December 20, 2023
I got no more
Summer be gones
Like a black hatted
Figure in Montana
My horse is a Hyundai Accent
It's parked in a Friday spot
It's 2 hour parking unless you have a paid yearly area permit- interesting, huh?
When I was car camping in Nebraska on a cross country trip to the east coast a man at the campground saw me playing guitar and came over. He said as a boy he'd known Jack Guthrie. I was like hey cool but I had no idea who that was. Was it Woody Guthrie or maybe a relative? This was in 1983. I finally looked him up and he was a cowboy singer who worked the west coast after the war. He was Woody Guthrie's cousin. Odd thing though, he died at age 32 in the town I grew up in. That was 1948. He was in the VA medical hospital for tuberculosis.
I = drunk
What manner of drunk are you?
The kind with kind eyes
And a sincere laugh
Born in El Paso
We learned about tequila
At an early age
I never wore huaraches
Buster Browns or Keds
My dad had an Opel GT
That he bought after mom left him
I studied wood shop
And auto shop
And got cut from the baseball team
After they gave me a team hat
Conceived of a stone ramble
Break pita bread
Don't try again
Back the slew of Tom Thumb friendships
One sleeps all day
Another watches tv
The cat is bored
And tears at the sofa
Is there any beer?
At the store
The faraway look is not chosen
My shoes are worn out sneakers
My shirt from a diner in fancy Napa Valley
I had a white VW bus
We drove it across the south
In the summer
It was hot and no AC
At a KOA in Arizona
I got yelled at for checking my oil
I drove over his sprinkler on the way out
Tuesday, December 19, 2023
Should I edit
Well that assumes something
Like a fallen tree in a forest and no one's there
Certainly there are always bugs and animals who can hear
So fuck your human centric pov
Sorry got a little carried away
I wouldn't mind being a bug or a critter- maybe
A red Fox or a wolverine
Or a dragonfly- dragonflies have been around since before all kinds of anything
Sciency
Or maybe a turtle
Turtles are cool
I turned a blackened soldiers eye to the
TV
- nahh I didn't I'm just at a loss
- for what to do
- it's a cloudy day- I walked three miles
-Bought 2 sandwiches
- and took some photos in to be printed
- photo labs are cool
- just regular prints nothing fancy
- just tests of some plastic camera b&w shots
- I took in NY
- I stayed in the West Village
- at my cousins place
- she's living in Austin TX now
It's a cool old car
A 1974 VW Thing- it's kinda utilitarian jeep like car.
They only made them in 1973 and 1974 and they only came in orange or green. His is green. It's a convertible but they came with plastic vinyl roofs. I think they might still make them in Mexico or at least they did for a while.
It's been sitting in a guy's yard in the foothills for years and it doesn't run but my friend who lives in Pasadena wants it. He's been complaining about what to do with it to me for years. Finally I was like Jesus either you want it or you don't! If you want it you either gotta get it and tow it yourself (which would never happen because he's just not that kind of guy) or you gotta cough up the money to have it towed down there. He was like I'm worried. Worried about what? He has some problems. Nothing I can do. I try to help him but I can only do so much. C'mon get it done!
Hah- be the expertise- like the
Color - or try to make ocean waves- are you the king- or just a treason- resist the apparatchik- clear cool water- on your back and on your hands- Dylan-
Clap a hundred times- fast for a week- buy a new motorcycle- eat wheat thins- guess at the idea - don't be Allen Ginsberg-
Rise to the occasion/ like a flurry of cornflakes/-
Milk is the answer- but no question - to a cow
They have souls-
Get out and tree bathe- read
A cartoon book- spend an hour doing nothing
Cast Hexagram:
39 - Thirty-Nine
Chien / Obstacle
Ominous roiling in the Crater Lake atop the Volcano:
When meeting an impasse, the Superior Person turns his gaze within, and views the obstacle from a new perspective.
Offer your opponent nothing to resist.
Let a sage guide you in this.
Good fortune lies along this course.
SITUATION ANALYSIS:
The Obstacle lies in obstinance.An insistence on only one way of proceeding has brought things to an impasse.
You may either continue banging your head with irresistible force against this immovable object, or you might step back and survey this situation from a fresh perspective.
Don't try to be an I Ching - throw yourself to the moment- tea leaves can tell if one is attuned, maybe- intuition is underrated- the clouds tell stories- doubt is like water to a reasonable idea- or a fortune cookie- please the Kung Pao Chicken- don't forget yourself in the freedom - please the rapids- sign away all rights- bless the anchor- before it is tossed
Monday, December 18, 2023
I fixed G'Don's backyard shed door
It was broken off
The old guy was a drinker
And his wife kept him together
This was in suburb of Boston
Melrose
Near Tufts
But she died
And his daughter
Put him in a home
Poor old bastard
He said
I own half your dads property
But my dad had cut him off
After he reneged on their deal of
Grandma Ruth's things
After she died
But he told me some good stories
There's no hiding
From yourself- in the backyard- next to the chrysanthemums- you're the Karloff of your nightmare fueled funny Car- Don "The Mongoose " McEwen- versus Knievels Snake River jump- his last great non-event- blessed ain't you- the dharma bum of no-tokay wine- why did I buy a copy of 'Junky' - because it was a Penguin - for five bucks
Can you clamor
To sway
I've seen
The fade of the tent crack
On Lyon
Planters sell like hot cakes
The sidewalk is home
But it's raining
An atmospheric river
No tv
Just phones
And digging in the dirt
A man's living in the bus stop
Stacks of leftover cartons
And blankets
Swastikas drawn on old pizza boxes
And an Iron Cross
There weren't much to prove
In an oak barrel life
The water smelled like sulfur
And was brackish and gray
Arroyo life
Dried up hills where low grade coal
Was once mined
-You could find scores of shells
In the hills a hundred miles
From the ocean
What are these doing here
The K-OLA
mine sign was still visible
Made from white rocks
On a bare hillside
The old oak barn
With old planks
Or maybe redwood?
As the barn looked red
I think the barn was why my dad
Bought the property
Most of it was a very deep arroyo
With dangerously steep sides
On the west
The arroyo led to a
Silk smooth muddy lake/pond
Man made by bulldozer
Before the county got involved
Years later my uncle said
I own half that property!
But he was a blow hard
I think he's still alive
My cousin put him in a home
After his wife died
These hills had been cattle ranches
Split up by the Spaniards
The hills were crisscrossed
In lines, tracks
From the cattle walking back and forth
Grazing for two hundred years
Somewhere near here a
Man was shot and killed
By his neighbor who had warned him
to keep his cattle off his property
But he had no fences
Still you don't kill a man
Over cattle grazing
And he went to jail
Thieves used to prey on
Miners bringing gold back
From the foothills
Joaquin Murrieta
And the like
They'd kill them and take
Everything
So they had to build a jail
I think it was
In Pleasanton
Sunday, December 17, 2023
Fuckin' fuck
The I swear
The sweaters
Are happy reminders
Of the MacDougal street
Apartment
To get up and go to
The Cafe Reggio
The owner is an older man
Dressed up in a sport coat
"That bench is from the Medici"
Streets are littered with last nights NYU partiers
Drinking and laughing on the streets
Of the West Village
Near where the San Remo was
Literary bigwigs boozed
There and enjoyed the
New York nights
I planed the Hokusai reality
Planed water in drops of Mifune stretches
Does this mean anything
And why would I care?
The Seven Samurai
Marched to the b&w
Film cinematography
The hunchback cried
Like the hunchback of Notre Dame
Our Lady!
Quasimodo
Quasi= seemingly; apparently but not really
Modo = just now/recently, lately. only, merely.
Charles Laughton climbing the towers
Later directed one film
Oh Children
I think I'll buy a truck
And move to LA
Tired of hearing squeaky
Kookaburra
Climbing up the old gum tree
I'll live at Tioga Pass watching the stars
For a night or two
Then maybe down to Bishop
"Don't try that in Bishop"
The CHP guy said
And let us drive on
I was going 60 in a 35
A nice diner was all I cared about
With fried chicken
And pancakes w blackberry syrup and butter
And bacon
When I got to Bishop after driving ten hours
In the dark
Morning had arisen
And I was driving 34 in a 35
We went to some giant discount grocery store
Before heading to Saline Valley
And hot springs
And the ghost of Charlie Manson
Hours earlier we'd gone thru Murphy and
I said there's a restaurant here and if anything goes
Wrong (which it will)
You get a free order of Murphy's Slaw
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