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digging in the ground
foraging, I hear
German voices and am
surprised to see two
young women searching through
the underbrush
poking with sticks
and laughing
one stops and carefully
picks from the ground a
mushroom, from which
she shakes the dirt and
carefully places it in
her basket 

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"nothing can be
saved" brass tacks
and envelopes, mirrors
peeling, dust everywhere
you are tomorrow
today is death
on the road a man walks
in search of meaning
a car does not
see him

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Try as I might
I still have
to walk up Steiner
and see Alamo
Square past the bus
shelter and some new
advertisement that
always makes me look
even though
I don't want to

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There's no breadth to
these days they're
little walk up tenements
housing families cooking
oil rags and wearing
dried pears and peaches
looking in the mirror
and saying my don't we
look smart 

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I was
blankly staring out
the window
   and my electric
radio was playing
some lost tune to
the endowment of the arts, he
                                said
don't be pretentious you
could be a college professor
if you learned to sing
                                but
my omelette was nearly
burnt, orange juice had not
been delivered
              Saul keeps a thirteen
book set of the practices of sea
shell sexuality in his motor home
          he's learning
to survive on a budget 

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much scribbble
scribble out


Trying to be
something
besides that something
like walking (waking?) or not
I'm not sure 
coffee and
  Pinot Grigio I extoll
its virtues hermeneutically
expiring towards
a broken vista, transmorgrified
anthropormorphic rondalays
conjugate, ?
"it's a bitch" but what
are those guys doing in the
backyard- "it's a disease,
have some chocolate."

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Like a log in
the dam
suddenly the phone
won't stop ringing
outside men are
sawing and pushing
wheelbarrows and
I'm getting slightly annoyed
  I don't even know
who Mayakovsky is
  The faces change
but they stay
  the same

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Newt Gingrich
says I'm a man
and I know how to
survive
  hunting giraffes;
  women get infections
That's why they cant
be in combat- foxholes
the hotbeds of infectious
growth, that's why

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The cronies
of Washington D.C.
are still echoing
chamber music of
Operation Rescue
requiems; card carrying
members of the fetus protection
program- the FBI is
watching your womb - they
plead for death, it is preferable to torture but
we support  them- freedom
fighters applying electricity
to breasts
and labia
don't worry, don't
laugh
you won't disappear

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I'll have another
cigarette for breakfast
and peruse the want ads
of movie stars & baseball
on the radio
   cigarette ashes on the carpet
and a torn chocolate wrapper
two round stones and a
pot pipe
   I stayed up till 3 o'clock
last night watching a movie

about young women imprisoned
and tortured by some fiendish
bald headed asian warlord

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Whoa
let us hold
sway with
a pontificate pony
up the backside with
him- is the pope
catholic-natch
it's a remote tendril-
time specs anonymous
colonies breeding-
Roman Catholic time
smashing my cable
TV- I am enterprising
decentraized- I have
no vision- this epoch
quartermaster- it's a
war of words with
guns & chemical infusions
it was a sand bug-
an arachnid that's given
you that disease- not
our own Saddam destroyers
milk of our mother- USA's -
breast

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Sally worked
all night long
in a dimestore
phone booth
she couldn't go
home
there was no home
to go to
her boyfriend's thrown in
jail and she's got two
black eyes- he had all
the money she said- that
bastard-
oh Sally you're ok
don't let it slip away
Tennessee was no
place to be abused
she stole some money
sold some drugs and
she got loose
Thought she'd try her
luck in the land of
plenty

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on the deserted
playground of my
desire
there's a plastic jungle
jim (gym)
I don't know his last
name or what he's doing
there- he says he's a swinger.
I have no time for fun
& games
There's a plastic jungle gym
in the parking lot - it's
painted yellow- it sits
in a large puddle - from
a recent rainstorm- someone
stole my bicycle- I
have no place to go today
the rain is coming again
dark clouds have slipped between
the sun &  me- I'll turn on
the heat and read a book
tomorrow is another
day

do not feign sorrow
thy weepeth and yet no dew
the morn is falsity
and beareth no truth
hark
thy tears
on alligator wings
fly to my warnings
red hands
and cold feet
the sky portends gloom
yet nay
hot mead for the tykes
brasses, tankards and jim
we shall partake of something
stronger
and then go our ways

Harold dreamt he was in the dungeon
at the bottom of giant
ancient tower
24 hours a day they
played
Mozart
and fed him chablis and gruyere
at dawn
a one eyed hunchback
brought the morning paper
and a spiced latte

"you can pay more for it if you want, it's a free country."

and the dust landed
moon dust
on the childrens heads
their eyes
were watching
the glittering light
when
the dissonance singers
started someone was pulled from the audience
and interrogated
"Where's the moon tonight, smart guy?"

without an ending
he pursued the middle
beginnings were not his forte
he tipped well
and tried to avoid soda pop
much

greivance decay
a fossil of
grinning
paperback memories
the kiln was broken
the kyles were at the game
time sloped down toward
an ashtray with a cigarette burning unattended