3.

 The Miser plays his games

like dominoes in linen 

Unlike the Atlantic

  

You smile but don't know

What you are smiling about

The lemon or the Mac & cheese

Your heartbreak is just a little too close

You sweat and smell bad unlike you

You say it's the worry

And order a Gin & tonic

Beefeater's and the band 

Plays another samba tune 

Cha cha cha it sounds great

It's why you came in

And it's better than you expected

Hector doesn't know his name 

Is also a verb

You mean heckle?!

Nope. 

He complains he can't make any money 

With his boat

You listen sympathetically 

Life is not so bad

In Cruz De Huanacaxtle

 4 cont.

seems vague

Sounds like - you could move if you get help from trusted followers 

- maybe a cop out! Thanks I Ching (for nuttin!)

Like water wears down stone

 But it takes a long ass time bitch

   Be active and patient

And hope for flash floods

  And long periods of "dismal rainy weather "

Look to the skies for clouds

Do not, as the elder man on the Simpsons does, curse them

Maintain a superior attitude as the superior man does

 4. 

Are you one of the four?

    never mind it's not important

What does elegiac mean?

  I guess I'll look it up.

Sometimes I do the I Ching. 

You can ask a question and throw the tiles

And a get a prophetic answer.

I'll t ry one 

Should I move?

Deep Water beneath the Earth's surface:
Untapped resources are available.
The Superior Person nourishes and instructs the people, building a loyal, disciplined following.
Good fortune.
No mistakes if you follow a course led by experience.

 5. 

I saw a second tier

Of throbbing flakes

Burned by 6th period

4a 4b

Out by 1:30

Wednesdays were the best

Blow dryer and acne days

We took drugs at Sunol park

I could hear insane laughter of Derek Wilson

But we never did find him

It was a pretty big park

The drugs were bunk though

A little speedy and then squat

   Cha zam 

Cha zooey 

  California dreamin' 

65 Chevy in

  Niles Canyon Road

  The lady ghost

Bare hill country

  Dry past the old nuclear power plant

Giant kittens

Where's all the subdivisions?

The Veterans hospital 

And TB Sanatorium

Took horse back riding out there one summer

They taught us to knee the horses in the gut hard

When you cinched the saddle

Cuz they bloat their stomachs

Seems kind of fucked up

Gals had pegged pants

And boots

Dad worked at the Radiation Lab

I kid you not

LSD

Livermore School District

Stenciled on the back of all the fold up chairs

Reading Heinlein and Ray Bradbury

Fahrenheit 451

Sartre Les Mouches and No Exit

Hell is other people

 666.

Mmm

Hah 

don't worry about it

It is etc

  Lace the corn flakes

With testosterone hgh steroids Xanax and vitamin D

   Take the llamas out for a walk

Follow the power lines to 

   Althea's Mt Excedrin

On Corral Holler

   Over the ridge

    Where the Hoovers used to live

   They had a swimming pool

Go get a teen burger at A&W

   John's Char-Broil

Or Dairy Queen

After the motorcycle races

At Carnegie Park

 7. 

The creatures of the day and of the night 

They're out there

  Or rather in here

Rearing their ugly heads all the time

  They me

I'm sorry

   I'm fucked up

I try but a caged animal

Has anger issues

   So yeah  

    Fucking deal with it

I mean me 

I built this cage

 8. 

I ain't got no

No rope

     No stop the stop

Prime the plastic pump

  With a thumbs up

How do ya do

I'm eating grits w broccoli and cheese

Not bad

 9.

I saw a sordid star 

Enveloped by a night 

A breach birth of the fantastic 

Captain of the Caspian

A rambling tale 

Encumbered by Armenian tales

Of horses in a field 

By a Christian church

He carried a knife

He stole from his uncle

His name was Olav

But that's not important 

They sat for dinner

Octopus and squash

Potatoes and arugula 

Red cheap wine and biscuits 

His daughter looked good

Eyes aflame

And hiding

Her dress a shaded chrysanthemum 

The night passed slowly

The fire burned

Tales were told 

The old man fell asleep

 10. x 2

I'm a mixed up cadaver on borrowed time.

I've seen you walking the streets

A metaphor

A simile 

A crow 

Talking EA Poe and Rimbaud

The boat is in the river at night

I'm Henry Miller with no money

Broke on the streets of Paris

The 9th Arrondisement

Montmartre

Talking a mile a minute

To keep the cold out

We never got along 

We went to Death Valley

In separate tents

Even the dog didn't know what was going on

We saw geological formations 

For which there were no names

At least we didn't know them

Saw funnels of clouds 

Rising up from the dry mountain cold

Rose campground 

Junked cars with bullet holes 

Mines with grates covering them

We drove on

Camping wherever we could

We argued about how to cook Italian sausages 

It was fun.

 10.

I'm waiting for this to end

So I can move on

   To another place

     Another dimension 

The horizons are too edgy

   Too frozen in thoughts

      Like looking back at the past

   It all happened and can't be changed

The oceans don't need us

     We piss on them 

         And blah blah blah

      Frozen tears are icebergs 

   With our names

The sky shines on us daily

   "You're going 647,000 miles per minute

  Following a burning Sun 

And yet you think you know

  Say let's go into K-Mart

Candy bars are good

   Life is good 

     Get a ride to Burbank

       Eat Korean bbq

    You stoners

The children act like it's all new

    Maybe it is 

  Maybe it's me that's old

And fucked up

  Let it go

Let bygones be bygones

  Give it a break

 11.

I dreamt of a breakfast but I had no baseballs

The words were not important

But the feeling was everything

Unfortunately that's where I failed

I have no feeling for things or actually people

I have stacks of books

Some multiple copies

I'm not sure why

A bunch I have yet to read if I ever will

That's the way things go sometimes 

Sometimes it seems you don't get to chose

Or you think you do but nah you don't

Shit just happens

 12.

St. Stephen walked the narrow divide.

Of broken telephone tynes 

Grated and prolorn 

Dark green and purple skies

A 5/8 rhythm was unfolding

The bass was spastic and under renown

The strings were snapping like old sea turtles

The moccasin clad Paiute woman, Light Cloud,

Clambered up the cliff

Singing the song of the crow

Bob Dylan was in face make up

And wore a hat taken from the Napa Valley theatre company

He tried to sing but only squelches of a prairie cat came out

A book written in an ancient language

Was stood on by St. Stephen

Dark red misty eyes 

And sullen star lit night skies

Embraced the baby's cries

A triad of harmonies

Echoed in deep Las Vegas casinos

Herbert Hoover bent over and cried

Before he puked

Up a spaghetti and meatballs lunch

 13.

In 2021 I drove cross country. I was going to fly but they changed my flight three times without even asking so I said fuck it obviously they're having problems I don't need it. I drove East from Reno on an empty highway. Highway 50 through Nevada. Nothing. Miles and miles of nothing. I loved it. I'd be in an empty valley with grey scrub bushes for as far as I could see. I'd get to the end of the valley and get to another valley slightly different the color of the bushes changed and the rock was slightly different. Another valley of nothing. It was beautiful. On I drove.

 14. 

Something stole my soul away

I'm not sure what it was. Getting old? Booze? Smoking?

Who knows but I know it's gone. It's depressing. Life without a soul? What does that even mean? Maybe I still have a soul it's just older and a little cagier. Life can do that. You stop reading Herman Hesse at some point. But that was decades ago. Music is still good but it doesn't have the power it once had. Just looking at record albums and trying glean info was vastly entertaining. Streaming? There's no album covers. Ah well

Life goes on 

The search for meaning is kinda done.

Thanks Jesus!

 15.

I'm tryna get drunk

But it ain't happenin 

Fight the power

But your moms innaway 

Get out

Get out 

Get out

Ohtheway 

I'm smoking reef

Ona long ass beach

My boards in your mind

Like my moneys in my

Mind

Oh wait no

This ain't right 

I got thirty reason to turn it down

Let's say hello

To all you  

And I ain't talkin to you

But let's say hello

And say good bye

Cuz the time has come

To say good bye

 16. 

Nights in Umbria

Your shoes were in tatters and you were sick

An angel took you home and you slept for three days 

She fed you chicken broth and toast 

The next day she wasn't there 

Not the next day 

You ate what you found in the cupboard 

And called your uncle from the phone 

He wired you money and you left a note and 

Twenty dollars

You left Umbria on a train and never went back

 17.

The Peanut Butter Man

working a regular job now

  sweeping the sidewalk 

With a black and yellow vest

 His Peanut days are done

  Not sure where his old Cadillac went

   Lost it in some peanut deal

 Near Los Mochos 

It was that fat guy

With the silver tooth

And the black cane

 Lucky he got out of there with his skin

End up bobbing beneath the pier

He hid in an empty warehouse 

and rode out of town 

In the back of a pickup under an old green tarp

  Fat guy's not around any more

Peanut Butter Man said

My brother fucked him up

 18.

Places

Along the drafty 

Blend in with rocks and stairs 

Seize your footsteps

Dust on your brain

Your mind is a disaster 

Too many bottles and drugs

Anger is your enemy

But everyone carries it like 

Smallpox 

The crazies yell and smoke 

You try to ignore them

A guy says I'll beat the shit out of you 

For no good reason

Maybe I'm too good looking

I get mad and yell shut your pie hole 

As I walk

I get a chili cheese dog and a glass of water

Then I go home and take a nap

 19. 

I drive myself along the narrow shore 

A stent in my head

 Drooling like an old idiot

I shouldn't be driving

They took my license away

But fuck it 

Life's too short

I pull into a Wendy's

Special orders don't upset them!

I'm barbed like a barbed wire

Torn up and fractally unlocatable 

Here's to the bees and birds

The chameleon police in turn

Here's to the Romper Room

Reunited blessed be those playground days.

I get back on the hiway

 20. 

SF blues

    hungry peanut butter

Jack

and Whistlers mom

   Streaming like chair news

Some crazies

On the sidewalk

   Drunk and pants down

Meth and fentanyl blues

Bent at the waist

Goin mountain climbing

With a bottle of Zen

DT Suzuki

And architect Mothra

No Morgan

   The sidewalks bark

  Like black crows and pigeons

Pecking at the garbage

Up the street 

  Kearney all night long

W egg rolls

And Chinese guys mopping out 

Smoking cigarettes and laughing

   at party boys drinking