Rome and Florence

January 31, 1999  (I was 54)

Rome and Florence

tourist stuffed and lined with street vendors

seem to be stifled by their own antiquity

Past greatness is their main business

There is a pervasive awareness

the cities will never be great

as they once were

Ancient glory is the stock in trade

And the exchange for the daily hard sell

earns dollars, yen, francs, marks and pounds

The art and architecture are rented to foreigners

The demand is great

Much modern time is spent for minute moments

in remnant ruins preserved in snapshots

mounted in personal albums

and stored on shelves in homes around the world

Traditional homage and tribute paid and recorded

testimonials of pilgrimage purchased

reproductions of relics

both pagan and Christian

Whenever -song

January 30, 1977  (I was 32) 

-third verse added 1/8/17

         Whenever  -song

Whenever you walk out the door

it’s me that’s gone

I’d cross the line if I knew

the side you’re on

I’m blind, resigned

don’t know what I can do

See too much when I start lookin’

Babe, I been lookin’ at you

Whenever I talk to you darlin’

I get told

I’m not talkin’ about the weather

I’m talkin’ cold

I’ve left, deaf

Don’t need the report from you

Hear too much when I start listenin’

a wind blowing nothing new

        

Whenever I remember you

so much I forget

the failure and the pain

the emotional debt

I know I’ve lost touch

With all that I’ve felt

I’m not sure that it matters much

It’s part of the deal to get dealt

two minimals

January 29, 2012  (I was 67)

         two minimals

Expectation is the brother of disappointment

From his observations and commentary

meant to cynically correct your existence

with the beneficence of his sibling experience

irrelevance exposes the false prophet

                        *

Every expression carves another rivulet

Footprints change geography

Creased mud that feeds a root starves another

and alters the face of the face

Immortal Intimation

January 28, 1969  (I was 24)

  Immortal Intimation

That man reacts

to the final alarm clock

rising upon his front legs,

iguana

glass eyed and neckless,

stops the bell with numb fingers

and shakes a Kafka dream

to drag his leather body out of the night.

In the dentist’s chair

January 27, 2008  (I was 63)

In the dentist’s chair

root canal worst case scenario

You are out of there two hours max

with a prescription for pain killers

On the drive home knowing it is done is nirvana

The process induces Colin Wilson’s absurd good news

knowing what we really want

the predictable comfort of what we have

the breath the drink the food the work the sleep

a solvable crisis to make the next one easier

The most believable astronomical revelation

January 26,2008  (I was 63)

The most believable astronomical revelation

is the increasing distance between things

Every communication device we create

makes the separation more obvious

and proximity more dangerous

Truth is kept simple in idiomatic terms

There is fondness in our absent hearts

and discomfort in things too close

From afar we integrate shapes

into forms that are recognizable

while we deny adjacent congruencies

that might make us seem as one

I used to say when I didn’t know it was true

January 25, 2004  (I was 59)

I used to say when I didn’t know it was true

Parents don’t own their children

they are merely allowed to watch over them awhile

I based the assumption upon my perceptions as a child

demanding freedom without responsibility

Freedom will make its own demands upon youth

Responsibility is the gift of parenthood

Childless adults must work to attain it

I have seen them overbearing at work in civic groups

and with their surrogate pets

Some had children now gone from their lives

grown and matured into separateness

or divided by a wider disconnection

Some pathways to our gods do not cross

Some coldness requires particular insulation

individuality periods of exclusion

Life that ironic playwright casts players in multiple roles

to be played with conviction from opposing points of view

sometimes simultaneously

If one wishes to criticize the script accusations abound

If guilt is demanded there is enough both coming and going

If comprehension is to be found

it is not because it is sitting there out in the open

Old Home movies recorded the artifice

January 24, 2012  (I was 67)

Old Home movies recorded the artifice

we put in front of the camera

Even subjects caught candidly

viewed at this later date are characters

not the realities we thought they were

Their extemporaneous gestures have been exposed

For generations Hollywood caught wide emotion in Cinemascope

while our family demeanors captured the small screen  

awkward impromptu interpretations of acting

No more!  Home theaters Make Everything Epic!

One reality is as real as the other

With electronic edits added music and voice over

we can make it as unreal as it is supposed to be

Why I Don’t Have

From this week in 2017  (I was 72)

         Why I Don’t Have

I do not like the smell of wet dog

I have no interest in discussing breeds nor feeds

I can imagine picking up warm shit to bag it

I won’t imagine picking up wet shit in the rain

I can’t do dog talk like owners do in the park

I dislike the incessant barking of my absent neighbor’s dog

I have places to put money other than vet bills

I find the concept of leashes disheartening and necessary

I do not want a dog in the house garage or yard

I don’t want to wash food and water bowls nor it

I don’t want it at my feet in my bed or on my chair

I don’t want to watch it drool nor smell its breath

I don’t like dog names

I do not think it funny when they chase squirrels

I do not want to watch it pee on a tree

I don’t want to spay it nor attend it birthing

I am annoyed at the preponderance of doggie toys

I do not want it to pull my sled or bite a leg

I do not like dogs paraded at every civic event in town

I do not want to sit next to a dog on an airplane

I do not want a dog in a grocery or restaurant

I do not want to say Don’t worry he’s friendly

I think more people have died trying to rescue dogs

than have been saved by dogs

Give your coins to the beggar

January 22, 1978. (I was 33)

Give your coins to the beggar

Who greets you as you enter the city

It is not good to arrive with the curse of the outcast

The city does not feed him

So he taxes the visitors

He has remained a stranger here

The spare change that separates you from him

Acknowledges your momentary brotherhood

Proceed directly to the place you are welcome

nude poem

from this week, 1971 (I was 26)

(for Sandra, while modeling)

nude poem #1

Line and form

from surface and substance

Drawing a nude is a process of elimination

and another of translation,

Look and what is it?

get it out

or get it down

nude poem #2

Body bulk demonstrated

mass of flesh and gravity

underscored

nude poem #3

When does the student become artist?

When does he legitimize the model’s nudity?

When does a zen koan have answer?

nude poem #4

All my poems are nudes

and some of them have names

separate from their parts

or gestaltic sum of them

I have defined for you

feet shoulders and forearm

but you see only thighs

and utter praise of my substance

I have posed forms

athletic graceful and constant

but you see only a reflection

of your own transient sensuality

nude poem #5

How you sit there

feigning unaware

just as I ignore

all I knew of you before

to turn your body into words

Out the window

night birds cut your curves in air

haiku

January 20, 2010  (I was 65)

drops fill window pane

rain stars cling to glassy space

then meteors race

The last time

January 19, 1969  (I was 24)

The last time

I visited you

there was a cigar of dog shit

on your lawn

and your son

greeted me

with a bouquet of toads

Disgusted at the arrogance of the moralist

January 18, 1998  (I was 53)

Disgusted at the arrogance of the moralist

enraged with the smug elitist

surly toward the indecisive

perplexed at the protectors of the unjust

suspicious of the self-satisfied

bored with the indifference of the oblivious lovestruck

frustrated by hysterical paranoid young parents

exasperated by the pained and bashfully withdrawn

I wanna pull the plug on Rosie O’Donnell

put a bullet through Oprah

boil Geraldo in oil

and piss on the best of Jerry Springer

Who are these charlatan

flesh peddling Microsoft

bitches and bastards of the airwaves

Jesus saves product raves

that America obviously craves

Go down Hugh Downs

on Barbara Wahwah’s wah-wah

while waiting for Nicole Browns

and Katos to say

have you had your Juice today?

When you’re young you enter dangerous deals

January 17, 2009  (I was 64)

When you’re young you enter dangerous deals

not knowing nor daring to know it

when the house of the dealer has guns upstairs

and drifting beings lost in the hall

and his patient wife with the bad back

has a legit excuse to take pills for the pain

and the guy with ten teeth is staying for dinner

When you’re young you don’t know how trouble feels

and when whatever you’re waiting for is late

but the money is paid so you wait and you wait

the dishes are in the sink his kids hidden away

and some other what-the-fucks show up

but no deal so you leave  Later you say  Tomorrow

you hear fuck-up got shot in the knee and the shit’s in

When you’re old it’s about friends in the business

a visit with handshakes and hugs

and how is the family a knowing concern

There’s a fire in the woodstove

abalone to be pounded breaded fried and eaten

a reunion of those at the summer vacation home

and everything packaged and on account

How Gary Became a Bartender

January 16, 1975  (I was 30)

How Gary Became a Bartender

The door was kicked in

pointing guns stockings over faces

three of them all over the room

and gun at his head said

The money and the stash Now

I’ll blow your fucking brains out

Gary gave up the cash said Refrigerator

which held the hash

and was pistol smashed in the face

Look at the floor Big One said

musta weighed three hundred

Where’s the coke

No coke said Gary looking at the floor

Don’t tell me that Shit

grabbed Shelly by the hair

45 between the eyes said

Where The Fuck’s The Coke

no coke she said and Gary’s face

was pushed into the floor

Where are your Guns

Just one behind the door

I should stick it in your mouth

Take off your clothes

Get in the other room

Come out the Door and you’re Dead

lights went out

stood naked waiting

for silence

night blew into the house

they were gone

with the stash

and twenty-two hundred in cash

out from the cave and echo of ritual

January 15, 2009  (I was 64)

out from the cave and echo of ritual

fire made shadows leapt

bone beat wood made song

one string whined

bug bit through smoke

rock scraped animal shape

night song sung long

deep warm sound sleep

hunger dream hog hunt

sun spark cracked dark

let out light lit up rock

wind blew black smells clean

origami family

January 14, 2012  (I was 67) 

         origami family

Folds in the single sheet of paper

create the geometrical planes we name

as individual shapes existing at angled

relationships to one another reflecting

varied shades of light ever more

intricately multi-plying patterns

one fold crosses another fold

as if they were separate entities

moving in opposite directions

through the origami universe

In the Pleasanton Sports Park

January 13, 2015  (I was 70) 

In the Pleasanton Sports Park

a line of eighty foot pines

borders a path to a playground

plastic swings slides and climbing things

Last Wednesday was windy and whistling

an exhilarating walk through buffeting gusts

the evergreen’s dance as in a tribal trance

I go wherever I blow cried a kid on the monkey bars

Round the perimeter I picked up the pace

felt the gale blast back side then face

an agitation of worked up blood

rarely felt since a Northland youth

Sudden sounds of roots up torn and cracking limbs

from back on the path where I’d just been

Children yelled the huge tree fell

but this being Pleasanton it dropped the other way

Kids laughed and took pictures on their phones

Blown away alone I stood apart

Having grown up on the realistic Range

I found the outcome strange

Running along banks of the dry creek bed

from this week in 1987  (I was 42) 

Running along banks of the dry creek bed

on a path under eucalyptus toward setting sun

then across the bed and back eastward

under white full winter moon rising

the runner encounters passes from half a dozen

young cyclists whining on their space age bikes

in labeled armor and anonymous helmets

They are suburban safe unsupervised

revving up over moguls and through chutes in the creek

they gathered in neutral under the moon

Younger admirers on bicycles group atop the sunny ridge

Four times the lapping runner passes their pit stops

each time stronger steadier more distant

countering speed with endurance

feeling at least a little more in command of the old machine