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)

 I dreamt my hair was thick and luxuriant 

With a slight curl

But it was more brown than I've ever been

THEN WHAT HAPPENED?!

 There was no ballast

But I ran to the rocky shore 

In plaid no less

I was no Dorian Gray

He said on his death bed 

"Either this wallpaper goes or I do"

 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

 Breathe

Like Heaven

The air is from Svalbard

Like the walrus tusks

Go!

git!

Fly a ship to the North Pole.

Drag it across the ice.

But the ice floe is going the other direction

 How are you?

I have no fucking idea

What I'm doing

But that doesn't matter

It is what it is

Not to be glib 

But fuvkn A

Haha 

I have nothing going on

I should be in Vail

Drinking Portmanteau and 

Discussing the double black diamond runs

With an Icelandic blonde 29 year old virgin

 WBCN

   Stoned

   In the darkroom

Putting the brides dress being unzipped

In a red keyhole

Or the wedding couple vignetted

In the middle of a song sheet

The Carpenter's

"We've only just begun"

1983

Listening to Prince's 1999

And J. Geils "Photograph"

Or Little Red Corvette

 There ain't no yesterday

Like a Tom Waits song

     Brass tacks 

    And cornet horn pie

    Slay the drakken 

     Seethe the tea 

Is it green or black tea 

     Bostonites sleeping at the wheel

        Let's watch the Bruins play

The Red Wings

 San Francisco Blues #99

Sat in an old chaise lounge

    Watching the 

Time go 

     Into the sound

       Of someone's music

    Boom boom boom 

   

 San Francisco Blues #93

You're not anybody!

And who are you?!

    I'm

The Subaru of your past

The Ostrich of renown 

The peep show of North Beach 

   The espresso of Benjamin Franklin 

Oh shut up

 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 Bay Blues

Jesse Fuller

Had songs he wrote on both the 

Grateful Dead

And Bob Dylan's 

First albums

Coincidence?

I stood on a beach

Jesse built a foot pedal bass

To accompany himself

On guitar with kazoo

And harmonica 

And snare drum

I think he probably made some money

Off those songs

 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?

     

 The tea

     Of the toast 

With melted butter

     And Chicken Tikka Masala 

   In a by-laws

  Of Federal FOIA

   ON THE BENCH SEAT

Of an old grey sedan-like

    Woman

 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

 He got it down but it burned

"Fuck"

He laid down on the bed and picked up his iPhone 

"Do you need anybody, I just need someone to LOVE!"

He lit a cig

 I felt bad 

      until I had a drink

Suddenly he was hungry

    A burrito?

But all the places around sucked 

"How can you make a bad burrito?!"

But they managed

Fuck it 

   He went with spaghetti and meatballs 

 Family Member was a regular guy.

He checked his box of yesterdays. 

"Dang, that is FULL!"

"Where's that box of tomorrows, oh here it is"

He opened it and it was empty

"Umm huh what the..."

The Grim Reaper creaked a bony finger!

 Pooh Bear had a pot of honey

    Her name was Foxtrot and Pooh's fingers...

NSFW

 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. 

 St. Boraxo

Ran a velvet thought

      Across the barren waste 

    Of modernity 

    "Like a machete

    At Atitlan

    With dormant volcanoes 

       And maybe dinosaurs

         I'll buy

    A wingsail

  And fly over the water!"

His mom asked him to turn the stereo down

"Sorry mom!"

 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

 Crusty

   

    And old

                          Slapping the rawhide

                   Of nonsense

      Have a drink

         Have a smoke

            Go for a walk 

         In SF one 

      Should be able 

       To enjoy 

         Oneself

 It's almost not fair

But if you think that you're going down the wrong road

I told my mom sometimes I drive through unnecessary 

Red lights

She's 94

We listened to eighties hits on the way to

Christmas

"I'm on a Mexican radio!"

 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

 I don't have the nerve for all that 

I just can't

Why because

I'm weak

And that's what I'm sorry about

But not really

I like being 

Safe and cozy 

And not all fucked up

I guess I'm a regular person 

Whatever that is

 Apologies for the last poem

I'm sorry 

I told it like it is

And for that I'm sorry

One should never do that 

 We lived too much

Too long

We drank 

And played until we were incapable

Of dealing with the bulllshit

Mice ate at our Birkenstocks

Our Birkenstocks!

God! Jeez! 

Our FM played

Help us!

Hey we've got our own problems

Time to change the World!

Power to the ________!

 There's a yesterday just like another one

We tried but it wasn't going anywhere

This Thursday that Tuesday 

Pry the rent

 Put on big pants! 

 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

Where were we

She knows the way- she's been on this road before

She's driving fast in the dark

On a back road in the hills

I just wish she'd turn off Guns N' Roses

And fucking slow down

 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

 The baffled

 And broke 

   Steadfast in resolve

   To swear by heaven

     And seer the flesh

    They strayed a path

   Of non compartmentalized 

   The greed of days

    Stays in their eyes

    They can do no wrong

And they are wrong

 The leaves of late fall are on the ground

Making random patterns on the ground

Yellow and red with striads of mottled colors

Each leaf is different from the rest

Unique

 I'm filled with rice and tri-tip!

Oh my tummy

What's for lunch?

 A beautiful Saturday morning

Beautiful December light

Air clean and fresh

The days will start to get longer now

A new beginning!

 She's a superhero

With her mask 

And her cape 

Flying around her room

 The Corvair was blue

It was new

And the swamp called its name 

Drive thru the swamp

David Byrne

Drive it splashing 

Animals growl 

Dumb poem 

I'm sorry I made you read this 

 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

 I'm a semi-voyeur

I'll travel the edges

And never be fully in

I'm just a dilettante 

But here's to that

I'll ghost you 

The first chance I get

 Great globs 

I had a fag

Smoked it like the Queen of Nairobi

I'm not telling 

I'm just a transient bum 

Rascally rascal!

Are you Washington Irving's godchild 

Nah I don't know what you're talking about

Great Globes!

Luminescent and electric

North America 

Includes Mexico? 

Ok if we have to

 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

 I had a brethren coven

We drank the blood of the orange 

With Druid vodka

What's Druid vodka!

Stonehenge Screwdrivers?

Excuse me menhirs!

What day is it? A Solstice?

Stand a little to the left Gandalf 

I need the Two Towers 

The Beacons have been lit!

Oops I threw my ciggie in there. 

Guys! NEVER MIND! GUYS!

 The measure of my discontent 

Was pi - infinite!

Pi are squared 

Or? Pi a la mode

Not funny

Knock it off

 The rest is despair 

Oh not now 

    But play that horn

    Play it loud

I know you can't play but do it anyway

    Play it and dance 

I'll draw you as a pictograph

         You'll be viewed a thousand years from now

   And/or I'll get arrested 

When some Instagrammers turn me in

Are you REAL?

(On Peyote buttons)

 I had the Mexican blues

They didn't know Gershwin 

Not know 'Summertime"?

How could that be?

I ordered another margarita

 I had a horny eye

For a redhead waiting in line 

For the cashier 

At the J-Town Konikuniya

 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

 I motioned the floor to arise

To greet the horns of fog 

On the shortest day

 With cool air and morning sun

 After today we start again 

  Another cyclical year

    As we travel through the whatever (space)

      At 744,000 mph

        Not bad 

           But we've only circled our Galaxy 23 times

              It's kinda big

 I bought a stream 

Of Orizaba

Consciousness 

        Speed and weed and booze

       I had no money to buy his books

         But the sunshine was hot

 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

 Everything Bagel

With cream cheese

And a 20 oz Depth Charge

Hello morning!

 I borrowed the remaining light

The day wouldn't mind

I kept freezers in the freezer

I had an unholy thought

I was not 

 I got a sense of Joshua Tree

In the rainy road 

I'm not a donkey

Are you

Im a lemur

In Madagascar 

Wookawook 

 Strum the banjo

Tom Banjo

Eat a corned beef sandwich

With a cold lager

Then smoke a cigarette

The Newspaper is on the table

 My eyes looked like somebody

But my hair was green

     I threw baseballs at a wall

   The sun was hot and very bright

     I went in for a lemonade

      

 Slay the dragon!

He hides in his lair

Breathing fire

    You avoid the entrance

     Why? It's a lovely day. 

      He can have his fire breathing ways

       And you can have your sword

 I am the range of

      Nobody

I could be 

A lot more

 I am th 

Kj

   Gif

That try 

Your soul

Eat a bean burrito

You sweet sod

Buy the Nefertiti burrito 

With super stuff

    Use 10w-40

In your motor 

 You limped a Flo-by 

Hair conditioner life

Pray to the bathroom tiles

Until you're blessed by the lord

Of lightning 

 You are Julia Traducta

In Tarifa or Algeciras

Somewhere in Roman Southern Spain

The forum in a Spanish city

Was mind blowingly large

It encompassed a gargantuan section

Of the existing city. 

Fucking Romans

 Being trapped is a monkey eating your camera

Not good

And why or where are monkeys? None here.

Let's forget about that 

    And talk some reality

       Like pills in the afternoon

          Or a book that comes in the mail

      There's something going on here

         But it's okay

I hope

 I'm the done 

Reach of my pain

I have no pain

Except everything

Here's to the holes in the road

Here's to the breakfast I ate

Here's to my friends

Here's to the awful moments of my f'ed up day

Here's to forgetting about that

And moving on

 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

 I have no fire

Except my tooth hurts!

I had a root canal and I googled it

5 reasons your tooth would hurt after a root canal

Great. I thought the root canal was to make the pain go away.

Wah wah

Complain complain!

But it's uncomfortable. 

 He didn't even want to live in PV

Until he saw that place

 Dad got ripped off by a Mexican lawyer

He took the money and he disappeared 

But dad was just your average Gringo

Looking at a beautiful Mexican villa unlike

Anything you'd ever seen

 Freddy Romero 

Was a good guy

But what do I know

About anything?

 I promised

The endless parade

Of snidely puss

  And tractorial 

Imbroglios

  To the June of  rodeo 

     Drive in Louisiana New Mexico

  Ate huaraches in Punta Mita 

    At desdemrloya beach

Where the four seasons?

Is now

Shit just ain't the same

I swam in PV's mayors pool

And they pointed machine guns at

Me

 Torturous 

Trial- of today- and tomorrow- seems 

Shitty to say- 

        So easy 

      So done

    - so good-bye

            To all that- 

     -I wish

       - I'm just me

     - and I've always been kinda 

  depressed

  But goddamn

     There's ways 

   Besides this

 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. 

 You had a collection of 8-tracks 

Foghat, ZZ Top, Hendrix- Are You Experienced, That's all I remember. In the next room your older brother wore head phones and played his drum kit along to Led Zeppelin. He had a Chevy Malibu. My sister went to Jr. Prom with him but said he was a jerk. 

 It was a cool car - early sixties Chevy Impala- red and white

Your older brothers friends car

We were stoned at 14

And we were driving through Niles Canyon

Listening to Free Bird

"Listen to his fingers"

 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

 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

 Green on green 

Was a bad choice

But I made it work

With an M&M's watch

And large silver ring 

From Mexico

 A journeyman's forest

Was no Doctor on Star Trek

Dammit Jim I'm a forest 

Not an Irishman!

 Aww the cypress

Leaves were nothing 

To the sunken city

Of Annapolis

Great Greek myth?

You decide!

 I'm so hungry 

I could eat

a frozen typewriter 

 Every bit of something

Means something 

And it means nothing at all

Chicken and rice 

Potatoes and leeks

The black end of the Highway 

In a PowerPoint presentation

Nah

 F that try again loserface 

 A fragile vase

Containing the votes of angry sheeple

Tired of politics as usual

Tired of changes in mores

Tired of being obese f*ckwads

They see the future 

In a NASCAR commercial

Selling motor oil

 My silver armor sheins 

Like an internet sale

I fought the knights of boredom

In a 3bdrm apt

 With a pot smoker

 And a OCD jet skier 

Things are good

How's it going with you?

 I dreamt 

/a dreamy dram

/of hazeltov cocktail

/in Prussia 

/by the river Elb

 I think my tooth hurts

/But I'm not sure

/Somethings not right

     /It's kind of worrisome 

                  /okay that's enough!

/ (puts on shoes)

/to go out in the rain

 Leaves are Bees

  

   /They buzz

/yer ears

/in Fall

/buzz buzz buzz

 Down by the stoney 

/can you hear 

      /a radio

-but the waterfalls are loud 

     In Vermont

 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! 

 Tuna and avocado on a croissant

I'm no Jack Kerouac- thank the lord

Dr. Sax is a cool title - kinda weird book 

Written in Mexico City

In a rooftop shack on an apartment building

10 Orizaba 

Above Bill Burroughs place

 

 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.

 63 Ford Fairlane 

Driven into the garden

One night after I took two foreign exchange girls

Back to town

He couldn't drive - had no license or experience

Surprised he found the keys and got it started

Lucky he didn't go backwards 

Into the arroyo

My parents were not happy

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

 Some kinda work

Others not so much

Like a lot of things

Sometimes I think

And that maybe is not so great

Like this

 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 

 Let's drive down the Iturbide Tunnel

To No Man's Land

And buy your old lady a steam shovel

Named Gladys

    Her sister Ola thanks you

 Spain Rodriques 

Was born on another planet 

He rode a '54 Citroen to Oakland, CA

 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

     

    

 Joyeux Heck

Above Madonna 

I stole a song

   Oh wait the 

   Smiling crystal

    Walks the hall

      Of Bayern

    Please the woodcutter

       With a flagon

         A tankard of Ale

                          But the times are a-changed

Grieve for the nuthin

   Acorns and squirrels

    Will work their magic

The Raven King

Sits upon his throne

   In another world

 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 

 Some days are carbon copies

Of the train tracks

Outside the Ho Chi Minh trail

     Which led to the Dairy on the other side

Of the forest 

In Durham

My dad named it that after hearing 

About it on the news every day

 

  A drunk 

    But not Hozomeen 

Waiting and watchful

   He had pretty much no money

   Why would he have so little money

  I don't know 

 I don't understand

   He oh why bother

        Let's steal underwear 

At Target 

Or get a falafel on Divis

   Fuck those thieving assholes

     Get a fucking job!

 To be eaten

By a bear 

Maybe not the worst way to go 

Your heart and liver chomped

Your balls and dick eaten?

   Maybe some of the meat from your legs 

Intestines spilling out 

Yards and yards 

  Probably pretty painful

But once shock set in you'd be ok

 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