There are worse virtues than courtesy

from this week in January, 1976  (I was 31)

There are worse virtues than courtesy-

even for the revolutionary.

In fact, identifying the proper enemy

before opening fire

becomes an essential weapon

to insure sympathy for the cause.

How often failure to exercise this mere gesture

is read in the biographies of dead soldiers.

I have never had a human Master

January 30, 2014  (I was 69)           

I have never had a human Master

or I have had a failure of recognition

I have had inspiring teachers of particular knowledge

None with an overall conceptual guidance

to which I could commit adherence

Any who assumed that elevation soured within me

The submission was distasteful the creed questionable

I have found serene paths among masterful trees

stone thrones from which to contemplate

Wind fills and drums the lungs

gives voice to tree and every aspect of geography

Birds offer the element of inquiry

The message is of the moment and present situation

The promise is of continuance but not of eternity

It Don’t Need a Priority

from this week in 1976  (I was 31)

         It Don’t Need a Priority

The horse is attached to the cart,

impetus and payload.

Just because it ain’t overturned yet

don’t mean it won’t.

One hoof in a gopher hole

and there it goes like a thirty-year old bomb,

apples all over the road.

There it is; the crop is already sold.

Impetus and payload, what can happen will.

It don’t matter;

assuredly the broker is a dead man.

What’s left is what always was;

don’t it become humorous?

The inevitable cannot become more so

As the train reached town

from this week in January, 2013  (I was 68)

As the train reached town

the intermittent roar of it’s horn

over the growl of its engine

transmitted an impression of

the MGM lion announcing the arrival

of the main attraction  The engineer

created the effect from memory

He announced it to assure attentive audience

before his flashing leaps

bounded past foggy crossings

into the wooded canyon

By now I have seen many

January27, 2013  (I was 68)

By now I have seen many

that wore their honors out

runners whom renown outran

They newspaper the past

of many an older man

When I first read of Houseman’s dead

I inscribed my volume in dedication

to the demise of that year’s youth

nodding my head to A.E.’s truth

After fifty years it seems not smart to slip away

much smarter not to play

Athletic scandal is a national pastime

Better it is to own the Grecian urn

depicting the laurels Ernie earned

After a period of time people become afraid

January 26, 2012  (I was 67)

After a period of time people become afraid

to open storage units they pay for

month after month for years

beyond the worth of anything inside

The loss in value to our past

may be the root of that fear

To open to nothing worth keeping

is too great a recognition of failure

not in what we did or what we collected

but in recognition there was a time

we should have thrown it all out and started over

Now it still needs to be done years later

Month after month we pay to keep that door shut

The Smoking of the Universal Joint

January 25, 1974  (I was 29)

  

The Smoking of the Universal Joint

The dip stick was dry

and there was oil all over hell

I was a defeated man

so I left it there down at the garage

I went to Ben’s for a beer and a pepperoni

sat on the bench in front of the store

Windy as hell too blowing dust

The damn thing smoked like hell

The mechanic was the garage owner’s son

overworked and pissed off

He could bury it for all I cared

Damn rolling jail

Politicians tiptoe around Iraq

from this week in January, 2007  (I was 62)

Politicians tiptoe around Iraq

say they were fooled by intelligence talk

The agents of businessmen told them what to do

Ignore UN investigators and what they knew

Any Middle East Muslim is a believable suspect

We can control the valves on the pipeline

Aggressive capitalism we tell the Iraqi

is what we call democracy

Any Hussein we kill will be revenge upon a villain

and Muslims are looking to love us

for ridding them of their oppressor

And our military said it was time

for a national fireworks show

Less than a few urged any they know

to volunteer for active duty

Those sub-listed in the Guard to protect native soil

for a monthly stipend and minimal intrusion

now walk a foreign pipeline pumping oil

and walk the bottom line of national confusion

Anyone who saw the international press

didn’t have to guess that Bechtel and Halliburton

will profiteer from catastrophic destruction

they can build upon

I’ll Be Your Sky

January 23, 1977  (I was 32)

         I’ll Be Your Sky  -song

Airplane lover workin’ under cover

Fanjet sucking up the air

Roar so load, head in a cloud

Won’t take long to get there        

You can drop your flaps

You can raise your gear

Pull back the stick and fly

I’ll be your sky

I’ll be your sky

I’ll be your sky

Traffic stacked up, flights are backed up

Wheel me down your runway

Standing-by’s so hard I’ll cry

and we could travel the fun way

So drop down your flaps

and raise up your gear

Pull back the stick and fly

I’ll be your sky

I’ll be your sky

I’ll be your sky

The air’s so blue at high altitude                 

Don’t think I’ll ever touch down

Kiss on the mouth then fly south

Off to get a sunburn

You can drop your flaps

You can raise your gear

Pull back the stick and fly

I’ll be your sky

I’ll be your sky

I’ll be your sky

Drinking Alone in the Woods

from this week in January, 1975  (I was 30)

Drinking Alone in the Woods

Here’s cheers to the continual rebirth of wonder

assuming a position of dance

with the trees in the woods

Hurray for un-shattered naiveté

who pays the daily price of innocence

with every amazingly fragrant step

Willingly suspended disbelief flees

Moss illuminates gray rock

Every bird a messenger every song

an intelligible vibrancy of hermetic synapse

Celebrate the isolated ego erupting from the throat

Pitch the burning stone down the abandoned well

There is no one here to disbelieve

State of the Ship

January 21, 2017  (I was 72)

Note to readers re posts dated January 18 through January 21:

All my previous posts had aged from one to fifty years before surfacing here.  My own age and recent disposition necessitates an impetuous risk to un-cask this recent vintage of items all written within the past fume months.  Their topicality seems insistent.

         State of the Ship

A red figurehead carved into a stump

blackened roots have lost their grip

in rich loam no stones for anchor

Too many crewmen in union

may not vote to keep it afloat

Why bust ass for a company

that would enslave you if it could

Saddened in the sulkings of lost opportunity

working through repetitious footsteps

waking in the grumblings of troubled sleep

trying to focus on a succession of conscious breaths

reading the musings of intelligent minds

Enough time finds new kindness from relative strangers

Eventually a few tokes of eternal wisdom curl about

Strains of Hawaiian music seep in

Shall we dance

                

Inauguration

Note to readers re posts dated January 18 through January 21:

All my previous posts had aged from one to fifty years before surfacing here.  My own age and recent disposition necessitates an impetuous risk to un-cask this recent vintage of items all written within the past fume months.  Their topicality seems insistent.

  

         Inauguration 

Like losing all the Big Games in a single day

A time when music doesn’t matter

A visceral understanding of existential disdain

A need to climb in the mountains walk in the woods

more to hide than reflect

a separation made more distinct

having to live so close together

jagged edges of silence between

eyes that wish to look elsewhere

as at a funeral after having been

very close to the one dead

and fear as a new friend

whispers sound advice

Disappointment is a byproduct of belief

knowing the way certain things should be

having ascertained the obvious

Though some things could be better

some other things could not be worse

Assumptions are made even if unstated

The shattering reality leaves two alternatives

the possibility that I was wrong or

the likelihood you assholes are stupider than I thought

                

Orders for the Borders

January 19, 2017  (I was 72)

Note to readers re posts dated January 18 through January 21:

All my previous posts had aged from one to fifty years before surfacing here.  My own age and recent disposition necessitates an impetuous risk to un-cask this recent vintage of items all written within the past fume months.  Their topicality seems insistent.

         Orders for the Borders

Mexicans don’t stall building that wall

American labor cannot savor it

If army engineers are sought it

will cost more pesos than you've got

O Canada I can understand

why you’d fence in home and native land

With glowing hearts we see it rise

strong and free against True North skies

Oregon we think you’re okay

as long as you don’t come to stay

Tijuana we’ll rename Tunnel City

to keep our farmlands green and pretty

In California we’d desire

chain link and barbed wire

all along the great Sierra hump

Separate us from red states that putin Trump

Admire the Wisdom of the Ostrich

January 18, 2017  (I was 72)

Note to readers re posts dated January 18 through January 21:

All my previous posts had aged from one to fifty years before surfacing here.  My own age and recent disposition necessitates an impetuous risk to un-cask this recent vintage of items all written within the past fume months.  Their topicality seems insistent.

Admire the Wisdom of the Ostrich

I’m not going to pay attention

until everything is great again

I’ve been told it won’t be long

If that’s true that’ll be great

Having been enlightened long ago

this time I’ll just wait to be liberated

When the country is great again

I will be fourteen again

If it is really great I will know then

what I know now

I’ll make great decisions in hindsight

not change a thing that affects me not

There is a melody in the background

January 17, 2014  (I was 69)

There is a melody in the background

a melody you may not hear

but the xylophone notes that float

in thought sound clear

There is a tune I hang the word upon

and the word is carried along a drift

from the tones of the vibraphone

serenading the cerebellum

It hums a song of balance and dance

It is a presence a pose and a posture

The inspired movements of romance

an equilibrium in which you’re lost

There is a consonance of concordant harmony

the incidental music of the mind

we find synchronized and euphonious

waiting for your expression

Tom, the Cat, Berkeley in the 70’s

January 16, 2013  (I was 68)

         Tom, the Cat, Berkeley in the 70’s

Tom had a cat named Mandu

He lived on the corner of Ashby and Adeline

with Elaine whose cats were also so named

street cats as it were

She had a thing for live fur

and a claw proof water bed

so it is said a hippie pad

black light postered walls

billowy pink parachute tacked overhead

paraphernalia and junk overspread

all over the place like college degrees

and former families  And they had parties

that brought out characters who knew Weed

Steven Weed and had partied with him and Patty

Clever names catch the cat’s eye

Once a bomb blew the door at B of A

just down the street as was the custom

of that day of re-invented freedom

and unconventional convention

Easy to agree what is shouldn’t be

not so to know whatever will be when they go

Both were both mathematical and philosophical

but artistically inclined they never

cleaned up the mess and distress of dissolve

Catoptrics explains the green reflection

from the feline eye  I cannot

Tom gave up his ninth to a mechanical blast

Elaine knowing my indifference to pets

passed Adeline on to me  Mandu

disappeared and Elaine took Ashby up another street 

Ocean ends

from this week in January, 1972  (I was 27)

Ocean ends

clutching sand

grasping rocks

Over neutral shells

that man walks

past stiff star

and fly-infested fish

He walks the fringe

The sea reaches

the mind reaches

The sponge dries

Slowly

sun fingers

fall from the horizon

I almost never talk calmly

from this week in January, 2011  (I was 66)

I almost never talk calmly

as I do in writing

The momentary manifestation

where anything done

may be the last time

with that set of variables present

to be acted upon or interacted with

in verbal intensity is one tact

of particular effectiveness

in limited situations

Unfortunately sparingly

is not often the way it is applied

Still the opportunity

for brilliant spontaneity

words and rhetorical constructions

flowing from the necessity

to fill the momentary attentiveness

with a logical progression of thought

is irresistible

The Cow in the Road

from this week in January, 1976  (I was 31)

         The Cow in the Road

Hello.

Welcome to your real life

(remember the other

the one with the golden hair

the one on the rocks by the sea

and the wind and the wave

that broke in trembling tetrameter

o’er myriads of naiads

gamboling upon the shore)

All that’s given way to tap dancing

up and down the stony steps of Sproul Hall

and all kinds of other groovy things

All that ended when the war did

All the soldiers were underground

waiting again to inhale the smoke and breathe the fire

Then came who cares leading up to now

and the ha ha of personal commitment

sitting on its own lap on our doorstep

saying its been there all the while and somehow

that has to be the truth and suddenly you know

you’ve been to the beach again

and there’s an oh-oh from the basement

and a rustling in the woodwork

and memories of the night the bats were loose in the house

But then all those things went by

not for everybody, but at least for us

We didn’t know the beginning

though we kept on surviving the end

and we will until one of us

fails to recognize the cow in the road

old man where is your wisdom now

January 12, 1972  (I was 27)

old man where is your wisdom now

now that you have learned all your lessons

outliving Faust Lear and the Don

the great wars were escapades

once past great dreams and great acts are the same

paternal ghosts in the fog

a precious flaw in the wall between lovers

silent thrill of a laughing mute

or cut heard by Van Gogh

how big is the puzzle old man

and how will you face tomorrow

polarity is our only certainty

Two Weeks Without Confucius

written on days during these weeks, 2016 (I was 71)

Two weeks Without Confucius

         early January          (1/2/16)

Confucius never say

Why did I not think of that

Confucius never say

You hit nail on the point

Confucius never say

Give us this day

nor say Make my day

Confucius never say

Let us decorate the tree

         five days later         January 7

Confucius never say

Looking good is good enough

Confucius never say

When seeing fault blame someone else

Confucius never say

Ignore the less capable and less competent

Confucius never say

Great man is source of fear and discord

Confucius never say

I was born knowing all that I teach

Confucius never say

Allow wounds to heal, never forget scars

Confucius never say

Memory of a lifetime is not worth this moment

Confucius never say

Train the dog while the child watches

Confucius never say

Speak more but say less

         three days later         January 10

Confucius never say

Attend funeral to sample and comment on food

Confucius never say

Take off new shoes before walking through dog shit

         six days later                  January 16

Confucius never say

Humble general leads army of monks

Confucius never say

When at a party, leave before those younger

Confucius never say

My best teacher loved everything I wrote 

Confucius never say

Do not accept exciting new doctrine

until next new moon

Confucius never say

Excellence adapts to whims of society

Confucius never say

Stream below sheep pen tastes sour

The bottom of the hill resided in clear air

from this week in January, 1998  (I was 53)

The bottom of the hill resided in clear air

The ascending road climbed into cloud

The air wetter than fog and warmer

got under my collar as I walked

The sound of two rocks clapped together

hung loud and long

Someone else was on the way down

She passed by a hundred yards later

hurrying her pace to a clumsy trot

soon as I broke into her view

revealing her wordless fear

as if she had not also split my solitude

I knew the sound had been rocks

she plucked from a roadside land fall

Cracked together like experimental gunshots

I continued into my own invisibility

Rising deeper into thick illumination

the road undulated onto the invisible summit

The nearest oaks to where I stood were trees

The shapes beyond were something other

I want TV shows and video games

January 9, 2013  (I was 68)

I want TV shows and video games

that put reality in my life

I want to see

people screw extra-maritally

I want to hear them shout

when spouses find out

want to witness them caught

for whomever they shot

want them to talk filthy

when they’re guilty

want their mug shot to linger

while I give the screen the finger

I wanna cut down terrorist hordes

with my lazar swords

They scream in agony

when I drop them off my balcony

want their blood to spatter to antimatter

realistically right next to me

before I push the button to be

someone else in level three

We are grown children

January 8, 2012  (I was 67)

We are grown children

attentively inattentive to our parents

as our children attend to us

We want the care for our family

despite the family’s care of us

We are the grown children

cynical skeptics of our children’s dreams

doubting now we would ever dare

dream the perfect worlds we saw when

our parents dared their incredulous sarcasm

Some words hide in books

January 7, 1998  (I was 53)

Some words hide in books

that hide themselves on less accessible shelves

in the darker parts of the library

Some words arranged in difficult combinations

seem never intended to find their way out of the dark

Beads of nearly foreign dna

rosaries of dead religions

non-sequential twists of syllables

Snakes of obscurity whose lairs are unknown

to even the chronic habitue of the stacks

and never once re-shelved by the oldest librarian

(whose only hobby is to make rice paper rubbings

from the tombstones of the unknowns

on her visits to small town cemeteries)

Risking the disrespect of their dead authors

I speak of their existence

Wherever I have been I’m not quite there

January 6, 2013  (I was 68)

Wherever I have been I’m not quite there

there is always the place I just left

and the one I never get to

I’ve been detained in the woods

and lost in a cloud regretted the dreams

with accompanying schemes spoken aloud

When I look at them I’m among the stars

Out of sight in the daylight I find they’re out of mind

The more now to be done the less I can do

Satisfaction has no expectations it is

the now to be lost in the now to be

repeating the unlearned from my history

her

from this week in January, 1972  (I was 27)

         her

she follows all the rules

she  believes every one

she stayed in school, rose two degrees

she is beautiful

following the most important rule

she believes every one

she tells all the truth she knows

in any language with a smile

men admire her