Tribute to WCW

May 31, 1976  (I was 31)

                                 Tribute to WCW

                                           upon

                   a lot depends                      the unreality of

                                          sunglare

               off everything                           after rainfall

                                            glaze        

                 red convertible                    blinding white chicks

I’m going to vote for George M

May 30, 1972  (I was 27)

I’m going to vote for George M

There arent any boats on the horizon

and only two birds in the sky

If you want to play at all

you gotta play by disagreeable rules

and it’s the only game in town

If you want to play that is

if you don’t that’s another story

They can’t have you wandering round the field

They’ll need rules for you

I’m voting for George M  He knows the game

I’ve seen him play it on television

He’s not the greatest of the decade

but he has potential

if you value potential

and if you can trust advisors

kiss of a shadow

somewhere in the air

There’s nothing else flying

and the boats are in any port

so I’m going to vote for George M

When Oedipus was young

May 29, 1969  (I was 24)

When Oedipus was young

  he probably got a speck

    in his eye and swore

      like anyone else

             song

cut me down to size baby

dash out my eyes baby

I won’t care a bit

as long as you and I will fit

together…together

change me bend me cut out my tongue

no one else can make me feel this young

oh a oh a oh a oh gee whiz

you and I can get right down to bus-

iness together…together -yeh

At the Dance At The Land

May 28, 1977  (I was 32)

At the Dance At The Land

We got lost getting here.

Can you believe wrong roads

Named Woodstock and Altamont Avenue?

Barn hall open-beams, plank floors

Map of The Land tacked to the wall.

This knowledgeable collection of hippies has survived

Without a change of clothes since 1968

And they were here to dance tonight.

After a wine and pistachio stop we wound

Up Moody past Foothill College and down again

A number of times; gas station maps were of no help.

Everybody danced all night long.

The band was hot and we were addicted to bliss.

We were lost until we resolved to keep driving up

Roads we couldn’t believe –narrow hairpins

Moonlight reflections off hills, tunnel through tree shadows.

“Chains,” brought on the floor stomping

And the bass and drums rebounded off the walls

Right through your chest to end the first set with “The Shape I’m In.”

The band left them screaming for more.

It is as if I have decided

May 27,1998  (I was 53)

It is as if I have decided upon

a certain incarceration

which I have resolved not to escape.

It feels like a chosen sphere

of mental limitation.

It is selected repression

taking up ugly residence within me,

commitment more oppressive

for its lack of physical restraints.

It is a bondage and servitude

without redemption.

No devotion, no holiness, no light,

no ecstasy, rapture, hope of nirvana,

no grail nor golden fleece,

no solace in the ridiculous.

My vision is tainted with clarity;

no mist of compassion

blurs the view of artifice and deceit.

Not obliged to stay non-judgmental,

no amusement tempers disgust;

no match kindles the incense of freedom.

This small discipline

May 26, 1974  (I was 29)

This small discipline

The little monk

kneels in sealed rooms

to pray away various dooms

He expects enlightenment

He expects a vision to shatter his brown world

a gift of tongues a voice of fire

He chants the sun and forecasts rain

What is this practice of limited ingestion

these weeks of rice and lettuce and cheese

this fine attunement of visceral media

manipulating wavelengths of the nervous system

What is this small carpet from which to see the world

this drifting lily pad this flying prayer rug

from which to flick a sticky tongue at sustenance

Ritual diet floating in the middle of a ripple

jes sittin’ round home

May 25, 1969  (I was 24)

jes sittin’ round home

         stringin’ some beads

me an’ mah wife

         eatin’ cherries

smokin’ a few weeds

aint got no troubles

         don’t really need none

but give me a life

         of eatin’ cherries

in the noonday sun

I’ve folded my books

         opened my mind

with a musical knife

         and smoky red cherries

that taste real kind

why don’t you join us

         just loosen your grip

breathe on some air

         grab the cherries

and give ‘em the lip

it all happens on the hippo campus

May 24, 2012  (I was 67)

it all happens on the hippo campus

where the walnut man lives

He is not a tough nut to crack

has a list to survive in the wild west

seems drawn or easily slips cross campus

for another journey to the east

toward the light so as to chase it west again

a swirling sort of Asian balance

that leaves him feeling like Rod Serling

back on the Hippo Campus where in

a bicameral shell the walnut man lives

Certain nouns

May 23, 2010  (I was 65)

Certain nouns,

things, have parts to be named

like Henry Reed’s rifle

with its breech bolt and cocking piece

Updike’s telephone poles

with insulators and such

Frost’s wall in need of mending

with its round stones that refuse to sit

without incantation

Pinsky’s shirt buttons sizing and facing

Objects of mankind

need mankind to point out their insignificance

someone to balance the weapon and the garden

to spike the trunk of the greenless tree

to refute the wisdom of division

to set flame to the parachutes of commerce

(title)

May 22, 2010  (I was 65)   
   

In a book of poems I saw each

                    (title)

set in parenthesis

                         (like an afterthought)

(or a secret) that might otherwise escape

(a pair of icons) signifying ‘If You Insist’

(a full moon) reflecting everything inspired

(summarized here for you)

(a direction to the destination)

on the trail that follows

anonymous is the author

of the best work in each of us

the one who uses us to say the best truths

in a way so clear it’s obvious to everyone

that no one wrote it

Another slight man

May 21, 2011  (I was 66)

Another slight man like me

declared today eternity

This may be the last of the last I write

but that is my same thought every night

What should I do if it be true

that this mark may be my final dot ?

And what to write that might be new

should it happen that it be not.

I read slow

from this week in May 1978  (I was 33)

I read slow

real slow

I think I read good

but I do read slow

I have to say the dialog

at least in my head

sometimes 3 or 4 interpretations

I want to know if I would have said that

or how I’d inflect it if I did

Sometimes I don’t think I see the print well

it kind of disappears

or the words turn around

until I say dyslexia

then they line up straight again

(that’s why I think it’s just me

rather than the equipment)

I’m not a patient reader either

I mean I’ll wait for awhile

but I’d just as soon go throw Frisbee

or just daydream as I look at the words

I’m pretty entertaining myself

Even when I’m attentive I read slow

Yesterday I climbed the hill

May 19, 1971  (I was 26)

Yesterday I climbed the hill

and found myself

communicating with

the transcendental truth

I came to understand

that being one

also meant that I could not know what one was

And that one way to not be one

was to alter consciousness

and then I could not be sure I was really being

more than one

let alone all

I came to think also

that guilt once recognized

was not useful

Sin has already been died for

and when I questioned what to do

I was told to do what I do when feeling true

That was what was required

I knew that if there was a time I forgot that

I would be told again

in a voice both gentle and subtle

My great great grandmother

May 18, 1971  (I was 26)

My great great grandmother

used to talk to any snake

who’d come wandering through the grass

Times have changed a great deal since then

but not at all my great great grandmother

Let some old rattler come up shaking his tail

like a kid tapping a penny on a candy counter

and it don’t faze her a bit

She just stands there with her hands resting lightly

on her hips and says “What do you say snake?”

and like or not the snake tells her something

My great great grandmother says

there’s a lot to be learned from snakes 

I guess I take after great great grandpa’s side

I never heard one tell me something useful yet

and a lot of people I hear

don’t pay snakes any attention at all.

I misplace things

May 17, 2009  (I was 64)

I misplace things

hard to have a place

for each and every

after every use

things quickly

resolve into nothings

The mind moves on

before the body picks up the tools

You could be known

May 16, 2009  (I was 64)

You could be known by the things

you did not write about.  If you wrote

about  something thoughtfully you thought

about things of which you did not write.

Composition is what it is called.  Composing

is what you do when you don’t

choose certain thoughts or certain words

because they are uncertain.  Uncertainty

in meaning or how the meaning is perceived

is taken into consideration when things are unchosen.

This does not mean the unchosen ones

are not revealed.  Their invisibility

is a strong presence in every written line.

They express the doubt the indecision

the fear the disgust the nakedness

the unspeakable truth you do not want

to reveal.  Watch what you do not say.

The Credo of Hypocrisies from pro athletes

May 15, 2009  (I was 64)         

The Credo of Hypocrisies from pro athletes

makes us all look like idiots:

We’re grown men here

we take responsibility for our actions

We create extraordinarily high

expectations for ourselves

We have impeccable work ethic

We always give 100% but

we know how to step it up when we have to

I live for the pressure of game seven

It ain't trash talk if you can back it up

I know I am blessed and ordained by God

I believe everything happens for a reason

We’re done talking about it

We were embarrassed

and it called into question the character

of some of their players

We’ve had tough ones to swallow before

but this one just snowballed

It wasn’t nerves

it was just a matter of settling down

We regret that it happened but

we’ve put it behind us and we move on

The message to kids should be

you don’t have to talk like that to be successful

I’ve heard it called many things the moon

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

I’ve heard it called many things the moon

read as many more the moon

a hole in the night a garden stone

something to rhyme with the word alone

It is the pearl and the oyster too

the cloud tossed ship the silver sliver

oval face of the man saying ooh

A button a bead a bun a seed

eye or navel or thumbprint of God

marble cue ball mushroom mothball

halo and horns maiden and magician

slipping in and out of the dark

shadow caster light who defines the night

summoner of owls author of howls

reflection of the lotus meditative bindi

mathematician of the months

Neptune’s conductor

Last night during innovative fireworks on San Francisco Bay

May 13, 2007  (I was 62)

Last night during innovative fireworks on San Francisco Bay our party of 18 in a charter fishing trawler booked for the occasion, floated directly under the spectacle while KFOG wafted musical accompaniment over the boats.  Many gathered for the luminous event. I had never before seen fireworks carried aloft by miniature hot air balloons. They rose among other bursts showering downward. All was choreographed to fit the musical selections.  I hoped some young couple newly in love, was crossing the bridge to the city for the first time, while hearing Tony Bennett sing about losing his heart.  And the night sky burst golden sparkles continuously all around them in wondrous frivolity.

A little girl approximately

May 12, 1966  (I was 21)

  A  little  girl  approximately

eleven with freckles and dangling

blond hair and round Keane eyes

      followed the spasmodic

         downward dashings

            of a silver pellet 

                  pinball

                       o

            Lights flashed

        springs thunked and

       bells bink bink binked

         a barrage of points

    Her fingers with bitten nails

snapped flippers and stabbed flippers

      flaunting a professional flair

With big girl ferocity banged the glass

bumper gunch and didn't jump joyously

    when the ball plunked down

                  SPECIAL 

                       O

                  WHEN LIT

She just pushed the reset to begin

the reverse score calculation spin &

flipped her hair in arrogant satisfaction

Thirty-one years ago on this night

May 11, 1998  (I was 53)

Thirty-one years ago on this night

about this time I became a father

twice and too dumb to be fearful

and too ignorant to have remembered

much of how it felt or what it meant,

and in the intervening years

too smart to think I could figure it out.

Too indifferent now to philosophy

to believe we ever arrive at truth

too numb to days to hope they add up

as they subtract

Too blind at night to see how we divide

as we multiply.

And certain it is better to be lost in now

than found at some future date;

better to be lost in now

than remembered as part of something gone.

Behind the screen

May 10, 2009  (I was 64)

Behind the screen:

         the embroidered image is reversed

         on the silken Japanese landscape

         muted sheen of a silent pond

         miso and sushi

Behind the screen:

         spatters from the surgeon’s cut

         the nurse practices

         deadpan bedpan humor

Behind the screen:

         the puppeteer pulls the strings 

         shadow puppets are cast

         giants and dwarves

         the deferential fool falls dead

         stabbed in the abdomen

Behind the screen:

         the drama ends

         a dusty backstage

         the door leads to the alley

Behind the screen:

         the priest hears sins

         wizardry is revealed

         in charlatan platitudes

         anonymity is ensured

Poets

May 9, 1974  (I was 29)

Poets

are people who

have something to say

and therein lies the pain

of one who has a method

If the medium is the massage

the message will be

delusion fear hypocrisy

and situations beyond our control

Machines aren’t that neat

We ought to do more

than imitate the light that sparks

when plug

meets receptacle.

Moog

makes every sound

from arp to zap

for no other reason than keyboard and switch

and we’re always in the backroom

rewiring a future