from this week in July, 2011 (I was 66)
A Chinese lacquered bowl
passes from one to another
old men with bony hands
from which they measure
spoonfuls of white sugar
She enters with swift grace
a blur of perfume
the blue porcelain teapot
blowing plumes of steam
From the veranda she hears
water slapped onto the dry stone
and she imagines the dark boys
smelling of hair oil and talc
beaching their boat on the rocks
in the deep black under the trees
stirring an unmeasurable sweetness
July 30, 1970 (I was 25)
Professional Care
Report all exclusions, transgressions and intrusions.
Replace that used for your transfusions.
Refrain from fried foods,
but retain sense abilities for future use.
Don’t drink fortified juice of any kind.
When you speak, be sublime
and you’ll be fine if you take one yellow pill
and a blue four times a day. Still
you’d better see me next week
and I’ll peek down your throat
examine the sclerotic coat of your eyes-
just to be sure, you understand. I’d be surprised
if the condition doesn’t completely dissipate.
At any rate, there’s no need to worry.
We’re in no hurry. All the tests have shown
it hasn’t grown and couldn’t possibly be malignant.
The pain is psychosomatic, purely a figment
of your imagination. Listen, I’ve got to be at the station
by four o’clock. I lecture your case tonight,
and I’ve got to arrive for dinner at five.
Oh, and you probably shouldn’t drive.
Get some rest; try not to get depressed,
be thankful you’re alive.
And remember, if you don’t feel great
in a couple of weeks we can operate.
from this week in July, 2017 (I was 72)
I’ve been back maybe six times in fifty years
Family buildings changed hands
The one owned by my grandparents torn down
replaced by an empty lot
No relatives live there
None there likely to remember any of us
Totally forgotten history leaves no mystery
Petty distinctions that separated the citizens
accompanied them into extinction
Not even the prominent ghosts leave the cemetery
Five hundred feet of snow has melted through their souls
The place I refer to as my hometown
a mere skeleton of the one I occupied
Bob Dylan has bad breath
used to be fresh as a new thought
now as stale as any old man in the park
Quite some time ago he wrote his mother
to say he still brushed his teeth
Now she’s gone and he may have stopped
The newspaper on the bench has an ad for dental implants
Every old item could use an extraction
stuffed with a wad of newsprint to stop the bleeding
before another toothless song mumbles outJuly 27, 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 because I thought the job needed doing
If the work benefited only you
I never took the contract
Never found anyone who could afford me
Teaching was never like that
I often did it for nothing
and that was everything
from this week in July, 2017 (I was 72)
Do first time smokers still laugh
uncontrollably at the absurdity
the shock of recognizing
preposterous perceptions commonly held
in every philosophical aspect of life
the hypocrisies ethical lapses
need for absolutes and absolution
so suddenly revealed in shameless nakedness
Back in the day that initial burst of laughter
was first the relief of wondering
am I about to do something stupid
replaced by its opposite and wonderment
that you waited this long to try it
The laughter of creative possibilities
billowing before us in aspects of artistry
insistent upon our attention
July 25, 2006 (I was 61)
Dinner at Jackie Reys
Another great dinner in a restaurant of price
If you can afford it retirement is nice
I can remember being happy to have rice
And a few vegetables to stir fry
was too a great dinner no lie
Keep a perspective don’t cry
I hope you have time to make it work
a chance to rise above the mire and murk
or else the option to go berserk
from this week in July 2019 (I was 74)
It is a privileged entertainment
having freedom from want and some time
to examine pieces of the past
considering which shapes fit together
to form if not a picture a design
that might reveal a pattern a motif
a recurrence of contrast and color
the subtle suggestion of a theme
to establish a continuity
a speculative comprehension
plausible today and repairable tomorrow
in privileged reconsideration
from this week in July, 2006 (I was 61)
What Can I Say, Read Bottle Imp First
So now I have a Bright House
upon a hillside somewhat north of Hononau
Where Stevenson’s Keawe had his
Though Hibiscus Halè is less lavish
with a veranda but three quarters round
and fewer toys within
still it brings me joy to share with my Kokua
and it was not purchased from the bottle
with wishes expressed to the imp
It is nevertheless luxurious enough
by most standards of the world
to challenge the righteousness of ownership
It seems to want to share itself
in a hot land often coveted by personal greed
the contagious cause of the Chinese Evil
that spreads to devour all it touches
an isolation of complete abandon
unless one gives back in the spirit of Kokua
July 22, 1971 (I was 26)
Misunderstanding your soft shape
under thin summer blanket stirring
and the delicate murmuring dream
into which I so easily slipped beside you,
my smoothest hand
drifted across the cover of your possible curves.
I believed the cooling lie
of my warmth against your thigh
and breathed your rhythms in colored currents
flowing from each sigh.
Then as the first bird called warning
into some distant morning,
you turned to deeper sleep
and I turned to philosophy,
hand stroking cheek unshaved this week.
July 21
…more from the continuing
Ballad of Johnny Mesabi*
On the path of least resistance
Smooth downhill takes less persistence
Johnny soon knew his life’s station
Was to be one of pre-occupation
Johnny Mesabi stayed out of his war
Began to knock on perception’s door
Giggled in 3-D saw the bones of his wrist
Tumble into place as he gave it a twist
Johnny Mesabi hard alloy of iron
Forged in that cold steel environ
A skillfully crafted durable tool
Educated to shape a facet of our jewel
Inefficiently he read really good books
(How appetizing really good food looks)
Devised lessons in creative exploration
Tasty dishes of linguistic sensation
a series from journals 2001-2005
July 20
…from the continuing
Ballad of Johnny Mesabi*
Johnny Mesabi child of ice
If he liked it once he did it twice
Knew if he exhaled he’d soon be old
Johnny Mesabi sucked in the cold
In the winter ya paid and paid hard
For summer escapes out of the yard
Deep in his head he always knew
Jumpin’ the fence’s the only thing to do
Blue lake pinewoods skate around the rink
Hollywood premier stars in mink
Back to the ore dump for a keg of beer
And on to Berkeley to tap a mystic seer
Johnny Mesabi was raised on The Range
Left twice to avoid being strange
When you leave people warn ya
“You’ll never stay in California”
But leave often enough and you will
Johnny did and he’s livin’ there still
You gotta settle where you feel strong
Then you can stay where you belong
Johnny Mesabi headed for the freeway
The Golden State gives ya the leeway
Disney Yosemite summer of love
Where the hawk flies the same sky’s the dove
Johnny engaged in the politics of hair
Taught in suburbs but couldn’t buy there
Started a family with less skill than luck
Planted rhymes so he wouldn’t get stuck
*a series from journals 2001-2005
from this week in 1973 (I was 28)
The poetry of urgency
lives in an instant
flashes one life
in a single metaphor
at a singular moment;
a quick breath
at high altitude
in a land of no second choice.
July 18, 2017 (I was 72)
On the forested trail of a moonless night
cautiously ushered by dim flashlight
to emerge under the overwhelming dome of stars
on the open precipice of Halemaumau crater
where fuming pillars of volcanic smoke
rise a thousand feet in fiery spectral colors
and shapes to illustrate any imagined epic
Down deep in the firepit caldera
demon monkeys leap over bubbling lava
and a distant hiss is part of the silence
The spirits of many writers here in the past
still sizzle and their accounts spiral again
Though he may not have thought it
it may be Ferlinghetti’s rebirth of wonderJuly 17, 1971 (I was 26)
That man climbed his mountain
with a prayer for a pack
and the peak rising in his eye.
He walked easily, rested where he sat.
On the first night he exhaled poison
resolved to be reborn every moment
and gravitated toward universal sleep.
Ascending winds of space cooled his feet,
rose with him up cold stones
to unconscious climbs,
each step exhaling past moment,
each moment a frozen blossom.
And as he breathed his sacred hum
under stars bursting from pulsing darkness,
the third day dawned on the summit
hot to melt his tingling skin.
Echoes of his roaring essence
entreated admission for his presence.
And as he viewed the peaks below
the mountain let him go,
finest powder with wind and snow.
from this week in July 2012 (I was 67)
When dogs at night stay out of sight
I know you are near
When the moon sinks in a cloud
you cast a ghostly glow
Feeding on hope, feeding on fear
fog on the ruins you in the shroud
absorb the light Hear a growl from the dark
Ghastly slow at last I know you are near
I will the moon appear
July 15, 2012 (I was 67)
A Few Notes on Tropical Birds
In the prattle of the palms
above the general cheep and chatter
one bird says Achoo Achoo
or It’s you It’s you
You know what the rooster says
Another bird rants can’t can’t can’t
so dove does do do do
Two converse Did you weld it up
I welded it up Did you weld it up
I welded it up Third says Well did
Did you see what Cerise eats
She eats cheese she eats
More specific listening delineates the general
into subtle individuality
Branches make me itch itch itch
A whole week’s worth of work if we stay
Eat eighty-three seeds eighty-three
Geeeeeze Geeeeeze
Walk the talk walk the talk
delicious but all so repetitious
Oh for the love-a Oh for the love-a lava
July 14, 1971 (I was 26)
Tom Taken
Cross-legged on the porch at dusk
surrounded by trees and even the sky is green
Just now got the point of a thick joint
A jay informs me and leaves
air so soft I don’t know whether it’s wind
or trailing breath of an extended limb
Mosquitoes shoot up on my arm and ankle
Randomly I kill them or let them bite and fly stoned
Kaleidoscope of leaves and vestigial branches
Calliope of dogs music and laughter in the canyon
Meditative melt from shadow play to star show
I’m perplexed and I just don’t know
how the rest of us just go on with the flow
after you’ve gone And all of us still
taking you along
from this week in July, 1970 (I was 25)
Medicine man mind your apothecary
your manners are atrocious;
your father knew better,
respect.
He’d never leave a customer
to stand unattended in some corner of the store
without so much as a good morning
or how can I help you today.
And you could see him mix the potions
and package them himself.
And you point, “Top shelf, middle of aisle D.”
When you left the store in the old days
it was known who was sick and what he had,
and you felt better
because the prescription was for someone,
even while he was preparing it.
Where the hell is aisle D anyway?
Yes.
You did feel better, and another thing,
small to you maybe-
you use these imprinted slick bags.
Your father used green paper
tied with string that came up through a hole in the counter.
Secure,
a package recognizable on the street.
A dollar seventy-three,
God, it used to be forty-nine cents.
Nobody calls you Medicine Man either,
do they.
We all called your father that.
Apothecary-
that sounded mediciney.
Pharmacist.
Sounds like a farm worker.
Did you get my change right?
Oh, and don’t forget the Green Stamps.
