Uncle Joe he was nothing to his kids

from this week in February 2009  (I was 68)

Uncle Joe he was nothing to his kids

and even less to me

To his widowed sister

a demanding asshole who thought

he should be mayor

but by proclamation not election

There was nothing he did not know

including the lack of a stupid majority

even in a town that small

so he moved and took his intelligence

to a place where no one could find it

Lost Beliefs and Faiths:

from this week in February 2009  (I was 64)

Lost Beliefs and Faiths:

Powerful persons and institutions are committed to upholding justice

Immediate Karma (as anything more than random happenstance)

A devil as root and keeper of all evil

Simple causes of most effects

Goodness and talent will be rewarded

Myths are extinct

Superstition is displaced by science

Time progresses

Answer to prayers

Religion as an agent of good

The word of God exists in written text

Divine promise purpose and guidance

Knowledge makes one wise

Those who learn prayers as children

February 26, 2013  (I was 68)

Those who learn prayers as children

repeat them under breath far into life

and may never learn prayers of the gods

who cannot listen to the languages of men

Prayers are not for the garble of utterance

nor the lost mind manifested in work

not supplications of desire

not expressions of nature

They are the sensing apart from sense

the knowing of being beyond body and life

They come to us between breaths

Not from us they are directed to us

Buying gas in Pleasanton

February 25, 1974  (I was 29)

Buying gas in Pleasanton

In the gas line

45^th in line

parked illegally

on the highway

trucks blow past

indignation

An improbable farmer on a tractor

in an improbable field grows smaller then larger

his slow tractor turns the long rows of dirt

The station man walks up the line with his NO GAS sign

An executioner  

Who will be cut? 

He walks past

Gulls waver in waves above the tractor

then drop into the broken swells

Fume tainted haze is the new morning mist

Line of car starter

firing like salutes

Policeman over a megaphone from his car

tries to clear a lane 

The sun lifts the morning sky

The station man shuffles two lines into one

as diplomatically as Kissinger

then sprints smiling

to the ringing phone in his service island home

The technology agreement to which we click OK

from this week in February 2016  (I was 71)

                 

With no return to report to those who never left

the voyage of exploration becomes one of immigration

the report a memory of that left behind

to those with whom we have come to live

They find it difficult to relate or care

about things that are not there

The insight inferred how similar it would be

to return to strangers left at home

The realization that no one now

counts us among their numbers

a nation unto ourselves

Stealth, to steal away

from this week in February 2003  (I was 58)

Stealth, to steal away

a solitary dislocation, a remove

to claim privacy as absolute

I have always needed and arranged

in frequent but brief intervals

Not a cup of coffee but a walk in the woods

Ice skating in the dark on a night too cold for others

From some place gone long enough

to become unreal as a minor myth

humility

February 22, 1975  (I was 30)

         humility

I walked out of the woods

(if you can believe it)

and no one seemed to notice

(it had been a significant decision)

A few said they hadn’t seen me

but did not ask where I’d been

If you want them to know

you have to tell them yourself

I decided and could not find words

I wandered into pick-up games of basketball

being not tall and the communication

was as with the trees

Postcards from Hell

February 21, 2014  (I was 69)

Postcards from Hell

You never know exactly where you are

A lot of mirrors and in each a different appearance

yet every one a recognizable reflection

Went to the portrait gallery

Nothing but mug shots

There is a distinction made between

those here for what they did

and those here for what they thought

but no difference is made by that distinction

We hear that Oh go to Hell

is a favorite expression among the angels

Sometimes letters get through from above

mostly looking for drugs and alcohol

Finally saw some blue devils

They used to be Eskimos

Darwin used to be here

but he evolved

Things can get out if you can find the border

Thing is there are no definable borders

    from 2/14/14:

Screw up here

and you’re born again

  

Here we know

we all shared all guilt

a knowledge of which

those in heaven are ignorant

The squeaky wheel

from this week in February 2014  (I was 69)

The squeaky wheel:

a)    is a CFO

b)   eventually grinds to a halt

c)    ran over a mouse

d)   is a bar

A leopard cannot change:

a)    a flat

b)   the actions of an ant

c)    into a leotard

d)   but it sure can run

The bigger they are:

         a)  the looser the fit

b)   the more likely to be named Goliath

c)    the fewer to the barrel

d)   the smaller we seem

If you don’t like the way the table is set:

a)    set it yourself

b)   fire the maid (in Spanish)

c)    eat in the living room

d)   overturn the table

All this time we spend in schools

from this week in February 1970  (I was 25)

All this time we spend in schools

learning to think, right?

But so many teachers,

so many in grammar schools, high schools

even colleges, we say, “Think along these lines,”

or, “What do you think of what he thought;

Ever think about this?”

Hell, we need to say, “Think of something

nobody ever thought of before.”  We

need to do that sometime.

That shouldn’t have to be said, right?

Some things are obvious in print

that never once make the action round.

Young Poet

from this week in February 1971  (I was 26)

         Young Poet

There was a time he could not hold a thought

together long enough to make much difference

Day passed upon daily poem of 7 or 8 lines

and each of those only echoes of the others

The nowness of now and thenness of after

occasionally lost in a myth of careless laughter

He had lost the overview of time’s continuum

or had given it up for a longer look at the moment

and still he found far too much to see

trying to decide whom he ought to be

Finally resolved that all was all

he considered these choices:

1)   a life of arbitrary resignation

2)   scoff at the absurdity

3)   gather more evidence

4)   hide from the fact

Realizing he might have time to choose all or none

he began doing number four for now

Let’s be accountable

from this week in 2016   (I was 71)

Let’s be accountable

Let’s be responsible

Let’s admit all the shit

we allowed to happen

cause we’d be dead if we didn’t

Scary surprise to surmise

how many were willing to spend our lives

if we let them do it so we didn’t

I’m accountable for more didn’ts than dids

My irresponsibility put me first

Though it may be fitting at our ages

to be admitting those back pages

There can be no changes in our past iron ranges

pasts with someone else’s future

I have a need to create something again.

February 16, 1969  (I was 24)

     I have a need to create something again.

One of those word meshes whose complexity and

worth is based so greatly and uniquely on the

balanced recklessness of composition and

decomposition.  Something that invites all but

also triggers apprehension.  A thing that even a

breathlessly uttered, “Oh God, look,” would utterly

destroy.

reality

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

         reality

the carpet is on the floor

my tray is on the carpeted floor

my feet are at the end of my legs

I wear glasses

I feel drawn elsewhere

what if I dream I forget all my words?

Valentines from Hell

February 14, 2014  (I was 69)

   Valentines from Hell

Finally a place where no matter

what you do nobody’s looking

And there’s no one to care

No lust unsatisfied

is no lust at all

Appetite alas

requires hunger

A day of debauchery

and mourning

the death of love

   more from February 14, 2016  (I was 71)

You made the repressive

less excessive

He’s in love

poor devil

  categories from our dating site:

jerk creep SOB hooligan

rascal rogue lowlife

thug shithead leech

and all sorts of animals

Hollywood in the mid-fifties was to me

from this week in 2014  (I was 69)

Hollywood in the mid-fifties was to me

whatever it had always been a dream

concealed behind studio gates and walls

where some people were chosen to give expression

to worlds imagined recorded and projected

upon the unsuspecting still living in the past

When I left the town diminished rapidly

it having never suspected 

I was exactly what the place needed

No rain we’ve had in more’n a year

from this week in February 2014  (I was 69)

No rain we’ve had in more’n a year

could be described as threatenin’

We pray for the treat o’ rain

Prayer to the natural forces

is the only prayer to make sense

The results can be mapped and measured

which words worked and which did not

And it’s no use prayin’ for lightning

if it ain’t already stormin’

Calllin’ on lightning under the sun

that’s magical incantation

premature and presumptuous

A call on chaos is dangerous invocation

which we term reckless abandon

No rain we’ve had in more’n a year

has required more’n a welcome mat

and we’d more than welcome more o’ that

Welcome the drizzle the shower the pour

pleased with the streams the sheets and torrents

soak us and drench us and gush us

Send down your buckets pitchforks cats and dogs

Them's gifts not threats

Crow atop a backstop cawed thrice and

February 11, 2014  (I was 69)

Crow atop a backstop cawed thrice and

none there to call me mad

I answered thrice and waited

not long caw caw pause and caw

to which I discreetly answered same

no response came so I sounded twice

immediately it flew and I knew

I had spoken crow

“Fuckoff”

The sun was a lozenge behind the swirling sky

from this week in February 2012  (I was 67)

The sun was a lozenge behind the swirling sky

Through the sports’ park I walked off the morning chill

The old walk in any weather stretching in to form

Fog softened people then enveloped them

to make intervals between passing more pleasing

an uncommon literal depiction of the way we pass

Though covered still sun warmth and glow penetrated

to insist there would be day

I walked the baseline of a skin-field diamond

where drying emitted swirling vapors

Ground sweating to shape rotating breeze

columns twisting to abandon shape for motion

There were no players there were only plays

wispy glides along the basepath

flares to the side high stretches in dissolve

Thingless motions circled the field

first to second third and round again

I passed through right into center

turning as a cloud blew out from second

Something from me blew in pursuit

following the parabola of a ghost ball

Crow caws damage

February 9, 2014  (I was 69)

Crow caws damage

silence

in the fog

Crow

caws

an affect

Crows collide

with wind

and complain

Crow will fly

through blue sky

though his realm is gray

a bare branch the throne

It is the imp in the bottle the embrace of leprosy

from this week in February 2013  (I was 68)

It is the imp in the bottle the embrace of leprosy

Empathy is to fade upon seeing the faded

an ability to hear the words of the dumb

It is to choke on the gasps of the dying

to smell the funeral in a bouquet of flowers

to taste the taint of mother’s milk gone sour

the regret in the burning of a flag

to disintegrate in the corruption of an idea

Obviously empathy goes a bit too far for me

Every tender sparrow…

from this week in February 1975  (I was 30) 

   Every tender sparrow…

those final flutterings

where hopes are denied

dreams resolved

the day is brightest

the air is clear

the stone will not fly

it wants the soft earth

the warm sun

the seed left in the clay

It doesn’t surprise me

February 6, 2011  (I was 66)

It doesn’t surprise me

     you were the one to become a soldier

and there are a dozen more

     my mind would place in uniform

You never expressed the wish nor willingness

     but I would have guessed you sensed aroma

in the stench of heroism and duty

     Now you’ve lived long enough to taste the rust

from the rotten iron of irony

I understand the choices were few

     for all of us in the cold

We took hold of the life lies in front of us

     pulled and were pulled in return

Some got the short string

     others tangled in the knots

A few untied a packaged gift

     they assumed they deserved from birth

with that bow around their little finger

There was this guy who had a card table

February 5, 1970  (I was 25)

There was this guy who had a card table

set up in the mall of a shopping center.  He had a cardboard

box with some kittens in it.  A marking pen sign said

FREE KITTEN –If you promise to give it a good home.

Another guy with a little girl asked about a kitten.  The

first guy asked if he gave his word of honor to give the

kitten a good home, so the other guy says, yes.  Well the

first guy just holds the kitten and says, “Say it.”  The second

guy turns red.  Then he smiles and says, “I give you my

word of honor, the kitten will have a good home.  He took

the kitten and kept on smiling as he left with the little girl

holding his hand.