survival advice

April 30, posted over the years  (I was so much older then…)

more slogans from the 8^th grade bulletin board

         survival advice

Flattery is alright if you don’t inhale

Those searching for the key to life seldom try the knob

To not desire the forbidden is to desire the impossible

Never offend with style when you can offend with substance

Never attribute to malice that which can be adequately explained by stupidity

Knowing the tricks is not all to knowing the trade

Thick skin is a gift of the gods

He who laughs last thinks slowest

The difference between ignorance and apathy?  I don’t know and I don’t care

One of these days is none of these days

Move over and let the big dog eat

Shut up and dance

The vulture flies with carrion luggage

I’d rather be being

You bore me so I guess that’s why

April 29, 2016  (I was 71)

You bore me so I guess that’s why

you ignore me so why should I

go outta my way just to hear you say

you adore me in your own way

when you say you abhor me

I ask you I mean I really wanna know

which way you want to go is all I ask

if you follow me if you catch my drift

If you read me you gotta shift

direction so make the correction

and don’t make me figure out why

you ignore me so I say you bore me

This is 1977 and I’ve got detergent in the cranium

from this week in April, 1977  (I was 32)

This is 1977 and I’ve got detergent in the cranium

I’m not paying enough attention to my eye muscles

I don’t have any money

Vaseline in the pocketbook

Oil leaking out of my rear end.

Personal relationships are hesitant

I’m putting a brick in the toilet tank;

The neighbor is watering his lawn.

There must be someway to buy our way out of this drought;

Who do we have to pay?

Arabs? Cubans? Columbians?

Can’t we buy something from England or France

Besides that big plane?

mobius strip

April 27, 2014  (I was 69)

                  mobius strip

What comes around goes around it’s been said

get it in your head before it spirals around again

from another bend in the track

moon at your back and sun in your eyes

run while it sets and hear the night rise

You could be tore out of earth like iron ore

giving birth to a car that takes you far away

to where unreality is made reel and you feel

queasy from the smog and uneasy from the jog

and old and trashy all at once at first

Hollywood is fun and scary for any Curly Moe or Larry

I had an agnostic friend

April 26, 2008  (I was 63)

I had an agnostic friend

When we were together he spoke incessantly

It was as if it was all he knew what to do

We went on a long drive

He’d say Snow on the mountains

when anyone in the car could see the snow

Shredded tires all over the highway

Contrails crisscrossing the sky

must be Air Force maneuvers

Gas cheaper in Carolina than California

Third dead dog in the last ten miles

wonder if they got hit or just jumped out of trucks

Damn potholes are three feet across

whole infrastructure is going to hell

Saw this thing on PBS said within ten years

we’d be able to paint solar panels on almost anything

They’re putting silicon cells in the paint

and algae is gonna end up the best source for ethanol

because it reproduces so fast and can be harvested

from pond scum

I said why don’t you just be quiet  He looked at me and said 

And that won’t bother you the silence

No I said  Thank God he said

and he has never spoken to me again

silent as the door to the cellar

April 25, 1970  (I was 25)

silent as the door to the cellar

as open as the night

a deep with teeth like stairs

the future shows us nothing

more carefully than its nothing

and we remember nothing that we knew

of cellar dark before

just a single step from more

More from the 8th grade bulletin board

April 24

noted this week in 2003

More from the 8^th grade bulletin board

-posted over the years to 1966-2003

         Infamous Quotes

Life goes on within you and without you.  George the Beatle

I yam what I yam.  Popeye the sailor

Maybe I’m doing it wrong. Newman the pianist

Money doesn’t talk, it swears. Dylan the Zimmerman

I used to be disgusted.  Now I try to be amused.  Elvis the Costello

Art is the lie that reveals the truth.  Picasso the cubist

Changes in latitude, changes in attitude.   Buffett the pirate

The road to Hell is paved with good intentions. S. Johnson the Brit.

Take a picture, it lasts longer.  F Stop Fitzgerald

I butchered rocks to free the men inside.  Michelangelo the quarryman

We have enough youth, where’s the Fountain of Smart?  Dunce de Leon

Like other surrealists, I am not a surrealist.  sign in a Salvador deli

One of my students told me his father

from this week in April, 1969  (I was 24)

One of my students told me his father

thinks I’m a twenty-four year old adolescent.  Who

better to teach eighth-graders than an adolescent

with a college education and at least bright enough to

deceive the State Department of Teacher Credentialing?

It is necessary to separate

from this week in April, 1999  (I was 54)

It is necessary to separate

knowing and being 

to perceive the balance

existent within their wisdoms.

Knowing is the ability

to take enough time

to see expressionist silhouettes

of leaf and branch upon cloud lit sky

after sunset on a June night,

insistent silhouettes

concocted of beasts and myths

of our own conception.

Knowing is the ability to take time to see               

the interaction of silhouette and thought

acknowledged as reality

in the environment of now.

To be is to assume position

among the interacting silhouettes

in the reality of the illusion

of the moment that is now.

It is necessary to separate

moon from cloud, beast from tree

necessary to realize                                 

where we stand is what we see.

It helps to take the kinks out

come to accept the effect of dents

check for leaks

read the charts and move on.

Reflections off a bathroom mirror

can blind the young.

And only refractions of life

Illuminate the eyes of the old.

A new mind needs milestones,

reminders of where it’s been

on a geography to where it’s going.

Later we are satisfied to know

we are as good as there.

I’m not concerned that yesterday

be remembered tomorrow

as it is remembered today.

I am concerned

about our perceptive abilities

to support our testimony

that yesterday ever existed at all.

For nearly one hundred years

April 21, 2014  (I was 69)

For nearly one hundred years

commercial luau dancers of Hawaii

have hula’d a traditional program

touring the Polynesian Islands

representing each with a dance

punctuated with drums

and protruding tongues of Samoans

Then the fire batons

ignite the rum in all the mai-tais

the incense of distant memory

the fire that dances in all of us

It no longer matters how genuine the tale

the repetition has married us to the myth

The hands the feet and the motion

convey the reality of real dancers today

The smoke disappears to where it always goes

and we cheer the performance

Cannabis

from this week in April, 2014 (I was 69)

Cannabis

for me has always been the gatekeeper

the smoky entrance to doors of perception

the mind changer that made reality

of fantasy in the woods

and imaginings under the stars

confirming the actualities of existence

that put the daily grind in perspective

And in that knowing time of clarity

to write to paint to sculpt to strum to dance to think

the obvious which is so often invisible

in its own transparency

I am a body rhythm man

April 19, 1970  (I was 25)

I am a body rhythm man

pulse you a poem

shiver you same

flash you a funny

cough you a couplet

twitch in tetrameter

and ache in absurdity

Deer flees

from this week in April, 1974  (I was 29)

Deer flees

Nijinski through the trees

wide eyes look once

The old buck runs

wet black woods at night

Knowledge has made him fragile

passion and arrows agile

Evening Stroll

April 17, 2009  (I was 64)

         Evening Stroll

I walk a few paces behind

Your voice drifts back

Mine never catches up

Once we walked abreast

Now the path doesn’t seem so wide

the sound of our footfalls not in sync

I am unaware of your breath

as you are of mine

Our shadows still dance together

a tall then small tango

between the intermittent street lights

Even in the short plank of common wood

from this week in April, 1999  (I was 54)

Even in the short plank of common wood

lessons might be read in the grain,

hard and tight soft and wide dark or light. 

How it might age or take a stain,

be burnished by use to common good.

I hear we are despised and I know

from this week in April, 2014  (I was 69)

I hear we are despised and I know

we have been despicable

Any defense is indefensible

Fatigue leaves me weaponless

There are so few of us to war against

we must change allegiances to continue

Intrigue is the fuel of war machines

Continue around the revolving door

more than once and it’s a carousel

Awake in a muddled morass of fog thought

April 14, 2014  (I was 69)

Awake in a muddled morass of fog thought

want to paper it all in precious language

and finding logically more fog than thought

I turn instead to Heather McHugh who

(as Seuss would know) can orderly spew

fulminate might be her word

or one confetto used to pepper the absurd

She’s one of those people who make it okay

that our skill is still one lifetime away

I thought the geist a ghost

from this week in April, 2014  (I was 69)

I thought the geist a ghost

What did I know but the likeness of sound

I am amused that the Croatian is but duh

Some spirits apparently less verbal

It could alter perceptions of me

when asked what I am

if I answered Duh

in Zagreb or in Omaha

I have staked out my territory

April 12, 2014  (I was 69)

I have staked out my territory

I know where you want to go

No fences are necessary

my scent keeps you away

I walk the perimeter of what I want

and every tree within is mine

it’s been a long time since I needed much

a fragrant shade where breezes cool

a log or two to heat my room

Each day less use for more than I can grow

Each night a new tale to sow

The electron library in the cloud

strikes me into universal virtuality

close enough to all I ever wanted to be

to bother straining for anything you might call reality

The honest histrionics of D.H. Lawrence

April 11, 2011  (I was 66)

The honest histrionics of D.H. Lawrence

admit abhorrence of a humorless end

maniacal horror though it may be

immigrating to eternity

A ripe pomegranate in his hands

cracked he says

is a broken heart

a sacred broken heart in Tuscany

I’ve been called out looking

April 10, 2014  (I was 69)

I’ve been called out looking

I’ve gone down swinging

Almost got a hit but it was a foul tip

caught for strike three

I contested a checked swing

They said I went around

I was drilled in the chest

ruled a glance off the bat

I squared to bunt but stepped on the plate

Took ball four with one foot out of the box

Still my anger could be abated

if those umps and I weren’t related

So without ever getting on

I was thrown out at home

The place I lived was less significant

April 9, 2009  (I was 64)

The place I lived was less significant

than those in books and movies

The surrounding forest was not Sherwood

The mines held iron not gold or diamonds

Lake sand beaches were narrow the water cold

no tropical palms nor pounding surf

The crops were corn and potatoes

The shops were small the merchandise modest

The library had stereoscopic pictures that proved history

was three dimensional and black and white

The movie theater had a single aisle

but it became a yellow brick road

A single path in the church but no wizard there

The post office smelled of lost correspondence

Posters Wanted crooks for city crimes

None of the trains carried passengers

Youth brings Grandma

April 8, 2011  (I was 66)

Youth brings Grandma

    a fresh ripe peach

from her tree as a present

    for himself he picked two

Grandma grants youth

    an indulgence

knowing he has given

    all that he can give

The fresh ripe peach that Grandma

    eats reminds her of the fresh

ripe peach she

    has already eaten

Particular authors attack the intellect

from this week in April, 2008  (I was 63)

Particular authors attack the intellect

not by their intimidating difficulty where one knows

he will never achieve the argot and jargon needed

to decode the message, but instead with the scope

of their comprehension supported by allusions 

and references to so many other works and writers

and presented with such enthusiastic import or provocative

implication as to overwhelm the reader with his own ignorance

and a need to engage whole bodies of additional work:

Colin Wilson, Joseph Campbell, Hermann Hesse, Carl Sagan

Revolution is a bomb and a prayer

April 6, 1971  (I was 26)

Revolution is a bomb and a prayer

that something anything at all

will be there once the smoke clears

Bombs are that way it seems

Planning ahead of them

is like trying to live off tomorrow’s dreams

If the times are bad, the situation intolerable

tell me that without a promise

Say only What the hell let’s rebel

Between these lines beyond their sound

April 5, 2009  (I was 64)

Between these lines beyond their sound

in the time taken to register meaning

with a breath taken to sustain the effort

lies a whole to be inferred from this part

a measure of the worth of life’s investment

in the singular you as well as me

Could you not as well as this

walk under trees in the light of day

or by twilight absorbed in dimming dark

to interpret shadows and illuminations

as perceptions of the self perceiving realms deeper

I know I could

Kidhood

from this week in April, 2016  (I was 71)

                  Kidhood

Skating in our socks across a polished floor

we decided what things were for

We could discover a battle shield

in a garbage can cover

Cardboard toboggans raced down grassy hills

rocks could express many skills

We saved the age of savage kids

re-inventing civilization everyday

abandoning it each night

when with the bats we took flight

blindly on bikes to improve our sight

Whenever we travel in the United States

April 3, 2012  (I was 67)

Whenever we travel in the United States

we are immigrants in our own land

The gentleman from Carolina is a cracker in Connecticut

The mine super with a lake estate in Minnesota

just a Bohunk rube in Las Vegas

That hick in the big hat in L.A.

runs 15,000 head out of West Texas

The respected Elder of SLC

is a moronic cult angel in Georgia

The suit that hails a cab in Manhattan

couldn’t get his ass on an ass in Arizona

Bully mayor of Tinytown tiptoes

his squeaky shoes out of Congress in Washington D.C.

Takes awhile to learn the language wherever you are

Keewatin images a dozen years later

April 2, 1969  (I was 24)

Keewatin images a dozen years later

Be-packaged old ladies

in old country kerchiefs

metronoming up the sidewalk

Boys on ore dumps

higher than the water tower

above the dusty town

Playing guns in fox holes

dug in the woods

near the ore pit

Going to the 12¢ movie matinee

on Sunday and staying

to watch the second cartoon

Fighting over spent cartridges

ejected from guns of the VFW

after the Memorial Day Salute

Sidewalk covered with sunflower seeds

summer evening in the park

listening to the City Band concert

Playing touch football on ice skates

at night through the falling flakes

It was always too early to go home

Dances upstairs of the Village Hall

with teachers as chaperones

and the clean smell of the Fire Hall beneath

Night’s dark pierced

by eight small neon tavern signs

and a million billion stars

Human Comedy continued

from this week in April, 1996  (I was 51)

         Human Comedy continued

Is no cookies raisins in, said the grocer looking older

than he was.  Good I said, I hate raisins

and he smiled at me.  In fact I continued

I don’t particularly like cookies.  I will

eat one occasionally to enhance the strength of coffee.

This last allowed him to resume his more familiar

demeanor with lips closed in a slight pout indicating

he had nothing more to say.  He wiped his hands

on his blood stained apron as if to accept a guilt

that did not exist.  I bought dark rye bread

opened it as I paid for it and ate a slice dry

He handed me my change without a thank you

and I left without saying goodbye.  I love

transactions like that.  Good bread too.

Communion.