I’ve lost some of the prolific solitude

July 31, 2007  (I was 62)

I’ve lost some of the prolific solitude

the Island has formerly imbued

the slow breath of summer surf

cautious steps on wet stones to Akaka Falls

to cast intent on flower and fern

and darkening damp deeper view

where from insect rhythms and volcanic drums

inspired lava flows onto the page

I’ve made the invitations

cleared the runway and opened the door

become a bus driver and tour guide

a distributor of discount coupons

purveyor of geography and revisionist history

turned love of place into a place others love

left tart tropical fruit in the sun

to taint and over-ripen until

only hovering bugs can enjoy it

I have not found a way

to dissipate the rush or stall of traffic

to point out the off-ramps that lead

to the back roads of the right side of the brain

to the calm of the hinayana harbor

where each small boat drifts on its own quiet current

toward the mahayana cruise ship of common purpose

The brief times I’ve done day labor

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

The brief times I’ve done day labor

I was underpaid unless hired by a relative

and soon I learned to labor relative to the pay

If you bought my time to bore me

I accepted only because the job needed doing

If the work benefited only you

I never accepted the contract

Never found anyone who could afford me

Teaching was never like that

I often did it for nothing

and that was everything

The excitement over the young communicators

July 29, 1970  (I was 25)

The excitement over the young communicators is this:

They love the media!

Be it recorded or visual

they have grown up with it

serving the role of grandparents.

Their message may seem trite;

clichéd yes, trivial no.

Their message is a universal feeling of a new generation

and the applause is for the accomplishment

more than it is for the message

(someone in a position of influence understands

something of what it’s like for me to be alive).

I was on the football team in high school

July 28, 2013  (I was 68)

I was on the football team in high school

I weighed one hundred twenty-seven

I was on the bowling team

carried an average of one twenty-seven

I was on the golf team

until I shot a 127

played centerfield in American Legion Baseball

hit .127 but fielded better than that

Once I hit a double but tripped over second base

I was a sub on the basketball team

We were losing to Coleraine by thirty-five

Coach put me in with 1:27 on the clock

I quit the next day told the coach

it was taking up too much of my time

I skated very well and liked hockey

but we didn’t have a hockey club

I learned all the strokes in a pool in California

but in Minnesota we had no swim team

So in college I majored in physical education

until I got good grades in English

and took up skiing by myself

The fingers of the student masseuse seek pain

July 27, 2006  (I was 61)

The fingers of the student masseuse seek pain

knotted muscle and impinged nerve

damages that offer opportunity

to practice crafts of applied pressure

Ripples radiate relaxation

from troubled spots in time

to my deep breaths that drown

shallow thoughts

Not only obvious issues of recent stress

more subtle mysteries of the tissue

send a message from her hands to her breath

She utters huh… before her brain can think it

then ratchet sounds in my hip and thigh

respond before I can remember

that slip on wet grass years ago

striding into a Frisbee throw

to impress upon young students

that I was now too old

She is good she brings back memories

back that made the wrong move moving books

shoulders blocked out of balance

during a high school football game

ankle cracked while running a trail

pain in mouth and neck from oral excavations

to remove wisdom and worse troubles

brought on by too much jawing

With studied precision she worked

my physical history to remind me

no pain is entirely forgotten

but our endurance is considerable.

That evening as the village lay bathed in moonlight

July 26, 2012  (I was 67)

That evening as the village lay bathed in moonlight

we perched on the ore dump south of town

One beer each only wants another

Out of that egg broke a plan

Who not home had six in the fridge

Your cousin’s dad had gin and they were gone

Good cuz we could refill the bottle with water

Upstairs key under the mat easy as that

Found the bottle poured a pint in a jar

Jimmy the look-out called out Car

coming down the alley

caused a minor spill  We had enough

diluted the remains dashed down and out

ran a block and gave a shout

down to the darker Home dugout

Seven-up and Beefeater from paper cups

before we ran the bases under the sandy moon

and fell on our faces sliding into home

Newport Shortboards

July 25, 1995  (I was 50)

Newport Shortboards

The colors of surfing come from Hollywood

The real thing at Newport Beach is a study in grey

Shortly after dawn a vague horizon

separates the known sky from the known sea

an indistinct mingling wash from tarnished silver

down to a rippled granite green below

The incessant ssh ssh of ocean has the aural presence

of the constant hiss from California freeways

Distant waves wait then one by one

lift into a long ridge that rises beyond rock jetties

to proceed mechanically toward the shore

break high in predicable foamy fashion

and sweep to play into a thin mirror

long upon the sand

Hundreds of half-surfers in wetsuits dot the pewter surface

like dark waterbugs in a bobbing conglomeration

A few push up spider-like on selected swells

to ride tentatively a dozen yards before dropping

pulling off the wave and foraging back for another

or they tumble headlong somersaulting into the surf

or are flicked off in angular ricochet against the water

or they pump up and down in an awkward bounce

for a power that is not there

It is a long wait to see the long graceful slide

of one preceding a curl and carving turns

with the hula-hoop moves below a steady torso

you see so easily depicted in the movies

Most seem never able to leave the bobbing commune

displaying the frantic patience of aimless ants

going nowhere along a crest of anthills

They do not hear the heart pounding timpani

and deep noted trombone ensembles of Endless Summer

Nor do they quick cut from sapphire slides

across diamond sparkling lens flares

to enter emerald tubes in Hawaii

then emerging on the crystal shores of West Africa

Like most of us sipping coffee on our rented porches

these Californians work for everything they get

Hawaii is what’s left of California

July 24, 2006  (I was 61)

Hawaii is what’s left of California

If you don’t believe me check da map

A place people come to be free

as they dare to be and still call it home

Minnesotan in a land of no flannel shirts

Carolinian trying to play Dixie on a ukulele

Utah missionary buying what he can’t convert

New York Jew tries to chew sashimi

Impressed Texan says sumnabitch! at Parker Ranch

Old Californian watches young Hawaiian fashion

flashing signs in designs from the LA hood

Wish instead he’d steal sumting good

So it is just a waiting game

July 23, 2008  (I was 63)

So it is just a waiting game

reduced to non-entity without a name

From the specific again to the general

the embodiment to the ephemeral

The building of nothing from the sublime

structure of now in the ever of time

The moon and howl not cause and effect

inflection and vowel not damned and elect

What can wait longest before it takes a turn

when the inevitable steers it astern

Edible red fruit reduced to seed

Was there a garden was there a need

Contract Negotiations

July 22, 1978  (I was 33)

Contract Negotiations

The organizer did all the real work

but no one called it that

figuring it was his life.

He had to explain the issues

explain that it was all right to demand dignity in labor

explain that the work was noble and good and valuable

explain that no God was appeased by sacrificing family

explain that the Company had big profits to share

that a job was a mutual transaction

that one need not be thankful to have and penitent to hold

that the collective power of the Worker is a force to be respected

that their division fostered the autocratic arrogance of management.

The organizer did all of that

and when he called for the vote and lost

he told them Some were meant to be peasants and slaves after all

something they had already known.

He left town and they went to work.

Touring Soudan Underground Iron Mine

July 21, 1976  (I was 31)

Touring Soudan Underground Iron Mine

Every green smile

pulled from under

the silly hard hats

issued at the entrance

tells the embarrassing truth

that we nineteen crammed

into this rumbling shovel bucket

on a cable to plummet

thirty-two hundred feet

through greenstone rock

and red vein ore

might ride this angle

all the way

to the darkest chamber

of this pyramid

to join with Julius

and his demon miners

screaming deaf from diamond bits

and pressure changes

five hundred forty fathoms

beneath an iron sea.

Pele ripples sky with her grey breath

July 20, 2008  (I was 63)

Pele ripples sky with her grey breath

shakes the wings of those flying in

to ask if we really want to land here

She knows we have nowhere else to go

and allows us to breeze in

kissing our feet as we touch down

to say she was only teasing

Aloha up close the breath of life

sulfuric acidic and most pleasing

The mechanical brush

July 19, 1978  (I was 33)

The mechanical brush as machines pass in the hallway

the spark that jumps from the lip of one electrode to another

the clap of like-charges meeting in midair

space hardware passing orbits after obligatory pirouette

modified mating move without the actual docking

a cool maneuver of recognition, a courtesy

Daytime programming never sells as well as night

The first time we listened to the alarm clock together

that was the beginning the impatient social harangue

standing naked and admitting obligation

bumping heads as we grabbed for the bell

Real Work

July 18, 1992  (I was 47)

         Real Work

I am trying to formulate a metaphor

         (when it probably should be discovered)

a metaphor of small rooms and solitary occupations

         (not a metaphor of cells and incarcerations –nothing penal)

a metaphor of security and containment –doctrinaire

a clandestine smoky environment absolutely exclusive

There is pursuit involved that might be obsessive

         (if it were not pursuit of disinterest)

a pursuit too casual to be academic

too peripheral to be intellectual

         (yet time consuming nevertheless)

a pastime more of impression than expression

It is the lazy animal consciousness

of a mammal with a roof over its head.

Family Music

July 17, 2009  (I was 64)

         Family Music

Once there was music

a pair of clarinets

in thin harmony and fragile strength

like hope and sunrise

bird call and answer

Once were molten golden notes

poured from bell of saxophone

pure liquid substance

permeated every room

like warmth and light

hits everyone around a fire

Once a complexity of melody

a galaxy of constellations

sparkled from a flute

to fill the density of heaven

like a continuity of wisdoms

that hold our myths together

Once there was music

made by those who could

Now only the percussive hammering

of one who could never hold a beat

An occasional lost echo

haunts a different reality

They went to war by choice

from this week in 2017  (I was 71)

They went to war by choice

to vent and give voice to rant

from pent violence

They learned to kill

as a matter of will

Here’s your boots and how

your weapon shoots

You go to the desert

you dress like dirt

They take what they need to succeed

cover their bros’ backs even

when they seldom relax

deployed rather than employed

never entreated utilized til depleted

Things blew up technology too

In their minds fuses were lit

They took what they needed to survive

skills of the will and pills for the pains

Whatever they took they took home

Desperation lives in a singles apartment.

July 15, 1977  (I was 32)

         Desperation lives in a singles apartment.  He

drinks beer in the parking lot when he gets out of work at

11:00 pm.  When he is home his apartment door is open

and his chair is in direct line for viewing the hallway.  He

checks out anything that happens by.  He drives a black

sporty hardtop with gold and red striping. His life is waxed

and amplified.  His cool sounds filter down the hall.  This

guy’s first name is not Quiet.  He is on the firing line with

every chick that comes within range and he is in direct

competition with every other heterosexual male.  In mixed

company, all is fair.  In the company of other men, it’s

statistics, hits and misses.  He hates fags though he rather

suspects they find him quite appealing.

Tree

July 14, 1988  (I was 43)

         Tree

The Cambrian layer is the spongy tissue,

the cork capillaries beneath the rough bark

where growth happens, where nourishment is carried

up from the roots to leaf in the sun,

leaf whose flat green surface accepts carbonized toxin.

In the radiant light they give back the breath of earth.

Siphoned poisons are a source of strength.

Strength is flexibility rooted in a localized reality

that casts arms outward to winded birds,

drawing song to itself, reproductive music,

rhythmic synapse in subcutaneous cells.

Incident on Howard Street

July 13, 1976  (I was 31)

Incident on Howard Street

In Feldman’s Clothier where his mother had worked

a sales clerk asked me where I got my Dylan T-shirt

Certainly not in Hibbing I teased first

then smiled and told her Berkeley

She told me

she had been Bob’s next door neighbor

that she’d stored some of his stuff in her basement

I told her I grew up in Keewatin   

My wife graduated in Hibbing and knew his brother David

She said she was Mrs. Schneider

and one of her daughters graduated the same year

Bob removed his stuff some time ago

She served him coffee in her kitchen

and he gave her a signed copy of the album

with Blowin’ In The Wind on it

Later she saw a letter he wrote to his mother

Don’t believe all you read about me

I still brush my teeth everyday

Song Intention

July 12, 2013  Kailua, Kona HI  (I was 68)

        

         Song Intention

The untold tale is the one we

live most fully now you see

beneath the layers of brown leaves

on the surface of memories

The primary consciousness dwells

in our deepest and darkest wells

and it’s echo makes you aware

that your shadow lives down there

It’s the untold tale that lurks beyond the light

the unsung song you hum through the night

The pulpy tale in the core seed

story essence not the deed

Mute awareness will not part

wrings itself to a cold dry heart

The energy source of our souls

costumes all our minor roles

unknown gems within the story

a subtle glow from the rocky quarry

It’s the untold tale that lurks beyond the light

the unsung song you hum through the night

what to do with the old motels?

from this week in July 1975  (I was 30)

what to do with the old motels?

room with double bed (hardly one and a half)

cracked plaster compartment painted large yellow

loud snapping light switch in tile bathroom

water with something in it

carpeting sticky to bare feet

at night the air conditioner like a DC-8

vibrates images of chilling flight

incessant echoes of familiar tunes

meditations, dishes rattling next door

it breaks down at 4 a.m.

soon this will be a downtown convalescent home

for the terminally ill; no wonder the aged

find regularity a problem assigned to rooms

designed thirty years ago for one-night guests

Lauren age 3 and Nathan age 7

July 10, 1988  (I was 43)

         At age 3

Lauren found God in Mexico

(Cuernavaca to be exact).

I was searching for a brujo,

looking for a nagual

lurking in the ancient arts,

some sculpture that I touched to touch me back,

some literary peace in Octavio Paz,

echoes from Indian flute and guitar and drum,

a shrine open to pilgrimage by taxi.

As I called one to the curb

her small voice rasped the back of my neck,

“God doesn’t know how to drive, huh?”

Jésus!

         At age 7

Nathan, a.k.a. Batman

walked the markets in Cuernavaca, in Tepotzlan, incognito

(his sensitivity to injustice gave him away).

Hundred-peso coins dropped from his hand,

from his unwarranted guilt,

into the hat of the legless leaning against a white wall,

into the kerchief of withered señora at the corner,

onto the plate of a man his own age

sleeping beneath his mother’s guitar and father’s song,

and in the palm of the eyeless man

who still saw Nathan’s knowing eyes.

Each one blessed him and his parents.

When the bat signal faded from the night sky

he said to me,“The poor are always with us.”

Jésus!

Application for what’s next

from this week in July 2013  (I was 68)

   Application for what’s next

What kind of tools were used to shape you?

Were there gross removals major grindings

chiseling re-positioning paring scraping

sanding buffing polishing burnishing?

Were additives used?  Any addictive?

Any radical procedures exposures reactions?

Any sensory deprivation tortures beatings

allurements promises inferences?

Were you ever allowed choice in the matters?

More or less often than no choice?

On a scale of one to ten

how did it all turn out?

There are certain waves of bad stuff

from this week in July 2013  (I was 65)

There are certain waves of bad stuff

you have to personally wade into

to get caught up and carried off

You have to make a conscious association

know on some level at least you are

on the periphery of vulnerability

So you thought you kept your distance

and only saw the bad stuff on TV

But the web of association vibrates

and the pulse in the current carries

the ripple of every stone

that strikes the surface of the grid

Associates from work die of cancer

jogging heart attack car wreck

suicide by gunshot by hanging by pills

Drunken uncle in mangled car with prostitute

Even living in a serene wooded enclave

Neighbor on one side

put a shotgun to his angry chest

Neighbor on the other side

sentenced to death then commuted to life

in San Quentin at the age of twenty-three

Threw a dope deal informant

off the San Mateo Bridge

Other stuff too  Most recently we hear

Chris who had his volcano dormant

more than thirty years moved to Thailand

to go to jail after drunkenly running his pick-up

into the motor scooter of two young girls

killing one  I leave out personal stuff

and I’m serious when I say

my life has been pretty normal

pretty suburban middle-class fortunate

it’s just that we start life

with such crock of shit expectations

the actuality can take us by surprise

The rose I stole from the grave of Thoreau

July 7, 2006  (I was 61) 

The rose I stole from the grave of Thoreau

nine years ago this week

still resides in Walden page ninety-seven

pressed against this fore-noted epitaph:

“Shall I not have intelligence with the earth?

“Am I not partly leaves and vegetable mould myself?”

Knowing the rose and inscription are there

brings me occasionally back to the volume

and back to the deed at the Concord gravesite

on the 180^th commemoration of his birth.

Members of his official Society placed the flowers

which I later co-incidentally arrived to find.

Without a tribute to offer, I took one to preserve.

With the same rash purpose I opened a random page

that brought me to the quotation.

Thumbing I find assigned sophomore pages marked

in Economy and Civil Disobedience

I hang around with Brute Neighbors,

peruse the poems of smoke and mist

and search in vain for a voice

with which I might bring life to Inspiration.

To my nose

I hold the rose that reached back from his grave

and I fold it back into its page.

Saroyan’s families have extra-sensory connection

July 6, 2007  (I was 62)

         Saroyan’s families have extra-sensory connection

or super-sensitivity, an amalgamation of the five senses to

create a gestaltic whole more powerful than the sum of them,

and including ancestral sensibilities as well.  All in the family

can hear soulful trumpet sounds blown by a distant brother. 

Ghosts of departed recognitions stand smiling among them. 

Aromas in the wind bring the shiver that indicates the passing

of an angel.  The most tart fruits swallow sweet.  Perspective

of a great wrong done long ago creates irrepressible unity.

         My family is an assortment of disconnections, frayed

wires and sparks flying, cold lines and the smell of blue ozone

in the air.  It often seems to work best left quiet, but that

never happens.  Volatile ideas and our chemistry, catalyst

of the moment, energy is exchanged, heat given off.  Time

and distance widen like a migratory impulse, or like expensive

technology buzzing in webs, and my dumb hand on the switch.

At Magic Sands eight-foot waves pour ashore

July 5, 1993  (I was 48)

At Magic Sands eight-foot waves pour ashore 

dump dumb boogie boarders all over the beach

Some get out some get good

most just tumble in the soup

mahus from El Segundo

First wave I try I almost die

battered face first on unforgiving bottom

tumbling hard on twisting neck

reverberating hours later

After shower food and sun gone down

moana still plays with my equilibrium

Sand rattles my ears salt seasons my throat

and it will be years before I try to get it out

One recurring message rushes through my blood

This is the way haole necks get broke

When you see Art, thank it

July 4, 2013  (I was 68)

When you see Art, thank it

Never knew how independent I was

until I realized how detached I am

I’m not big on trying to entertain the unknown

I need reasons to meet the new

and I don’t know many good ones

Mr. Palomar has three perspectives

sensory description societal experience

and cosmic speculation  I have only two

There is not much societal interaction

that I would not reduce to the lowest denominator

Most conversation could be trimmed by half

Half again if you eliminate the stories

everyone has already heard

If it were not for bullshit this would be

a very quiet country and that fits in

with the two perspectives Palomar and I share

I am familiar with practiced sensory inventory

and a sort of frantic meditative contemplation

of an existence beyond the stars

Within that elusive unity I am independent

and today is my day