ROAD TO ROE


Train clattered past below.
I smoked an Oliva. Never
rode boxcars, but hitched
around SoCal as a teen.
Then thumbed nonstop
500-mile Alaskan summer
ride. Anchorage to Homer.

Camped at a farm, people
played midnight volleyball
(bright 23½ hours per day).
Stallion in heat galloped
alongside fenced mares,
almost ran over my tent.

Flew on this toothpaste tube
plane west to Dillingham.
Mexicans got me working
that unsafe salmon chopper.
(“You’re the best at it!”)
Hundreds of cut off sockeye
heads stared up from concrete.

“Black Hole Sun” blared
out old boombox, followed
by mariachi tunes. When
schools swam thickest,
shifts went beyond 24 hours.
Except for one guy who
just snored inside his bag.

Burned fishy clothes
upon exit. Bearded men
guzzled liquor bottles.
Native Americans drove
only paved road. Lone bar
opened, blew paycheck.

Wrong Reasons

 
The way you turn around, in the dark,
is all wrong, and you have no idea
where you’re tonight or why. . .

Two streaks of light point to the place
where only blackness can survive,
and you go there, but you still don’t know.
You don’t know why
there is something heavy in your hand,
a hammer coated in warm blood,
in someone’s blood. You ask the blackness,
and the streaks of light become two fading eyes.

Remains Unsuitable for Viewing
                    after Charles Simic

The paperwork said.
The coffin duly marked as such, as well.
We wonder who made the decision for us
And why.
It wasn’t as if he’d been struck blind
and sent to clear a minefield.
If we could see what was left inside
we might conclude otherwise.
Clearing the minefields.
One man is never enough.




Down time at

The mall pizza place
old guys shot
the shit with the owner,
drank bad, burned coffee
commenting about,
“No tits. Nice ass
counter worker,”
who was the owner’s
girlfriend.
Everyone laughs.
Except for her.
She doesn’t need
the aggravation,
they don’t live
together, but she
needs the job.
Says nothing.
The more raucous
the comments,
the redder her face
gets, wipes the past
table and keeps on
going out into
the mall.
“She’ll be back.”
the owner says.
I always thought
She was always pleasant.
Always hard working.
Sweet even.
Nice ass, no tits,
shouldn’t define
who she is but
it does.

Pastoral Muse

 
Cornsilk unstrung like angel hair
flows in temperate wind gusts
rests on an air pocket and captures
lost moments warmed by eternal flames
of awkward commitment; somewhere
in between a freshwater crocodile’s armor
and a swallowtail butterfly’s wind dust
a spark of natural magic resides resolute
untouched by scientific progress
human encroachment, or climate change
confrontations—just golden tresses floating
breeze-back on inspiration’s flurries.




Hypothalamus Amoure

 
Aligning our circadian rhythms
breading shades and emerging light
we crow at one another, friends
and family discover daily purpose
in quiet, solace in shade, joy
in the moment instinct melds
with detailed knowledge 
providing form to ineffable oaths
making meaning in a world consumed
with electronic gadgets shrewd
investments, and optimum returns;
as we perch on Olympic Mountain
crags awaiting Dawn’s rays to bathe
us with warmth and signal our overtaxed
brains to quit producing melatonin,
internal clocks stimulate tiny cell clusters
processing, influencing maximum mental
and clockwork physical reactions to each other.

 

“A Sensible Choice at 6:29 PM”
 
All I wanted was to let my madness
dance on the blank page,
but I had unclog my toilet,
deshell the eggs I boiled for my lunch
for the next three days,
brew some decaf coffee (a sensible
choice at 6:29 PM), and smile
at remembering my friend complaining
about the drunks at the mall
on a Tuesday morning,
wondering what was wrong with them
and thinking I must have been joking
when I told him they just understood
life better than most.

Flowers


Off to visit a sick friend
In the hospital, Daniel
Would have picked up
Some nice flowers to 
Bring but there were
Too many witnesses at
The cemetery.

Junkie John

                   "I sing the song because I love the man"

                                                           --- Neil Young


In July, he wears wool sweaters
to hide the potholes
of his arms' bad blood
staining the starched white 
linen of his dress shirt. 

He shoots meth 
between bells,
locked in the faculty bathroom. 

By three he's picking his cheeks,
itching to hide at home
the night that sleeps
eyes wide until morning. 

Broke
he combs the carpet
for a bump,

flush with twenties
he watches CNN for a week
without eating.

The wife, the cat, the car
move in the middle of the night
to Montana

before the salad mash
of his mind
collides with the cops

and they kill him 
with a .12 gauge
for thinking he's back in Iraq

but his family
won't state his name 
in the paper ---

Gone, gone, the damage done.

But I was more than
just a setting sun,

a little part of me in everyone. 

The Lonely Ones

The lonely ones
keeping the city sane.

Their auras soothe
all the hate and pain.

We just have to concentrate
and feel with our hearts...

Joining the lonely ones,
making a huge crowd.

Keeping the city sane.

Thin On the Ground 

 
Don’t speak, 
They don’t want to hear.  

Never share,  
They’ll never care.  

Don’t waste your breath – 
You ain’t got much to spare.  

Screw the reasons,  
They ain’t got guts. 
Screw their worries, 
The jealous  
Will just call brave, 
Nuts.  

Nobody will admit it,  
But we’re all headed down,  
On the same  
Nowhere lanes. 

Don’t quit-on yourself, though.  
Don’t do like everybody else,  
Be brave,  
Go for broke.  

It’s the only way  
A long shot 
Can cope. 

Thin on the ground, 
Nobody wins,  
There’s no fangs of meat to fear,  
Stay crazy between the ears,  
Brazen belly of hope.   

 

October in the Edgware Earth
	After Jack Kerouac’s “October in the Railroad Earth”


There’s a big road in London called the Edgware Road, back of the Marble Arch station, where me and all my neighbours live in a building that falls apart called Dudley Court, with leaks, and creaks, and drills all year round, where people come to buy drugs, where Airbnb guests scream Mate, the lift’s not workin’! while the concierge mumbles Short-term lettings are illegal in these premises, but hands them keys anyway — the road is loud and proud, its rickshaws booming with sound, and motorcycles revving out into the night! — there’s foot traffic, and maybe trafficked feet — ‘merican tourists clickity-clacking their suitcases from the Hilton up the street to see Sabrina Carpenter sing in the Park, gazing at bars with shisha smelling like ice candy burning on the stove and at pawnshops with ol’ rimless spectacles and snus and flags o’ Palestine paled from rain and hopelessness while bootleg Labubus and cabbages next door blacken from exhaust and exhaustion…  Madman, madman — people say — coulda lived anywhere in ol’ Great Britain, but to me, this here is Great where people dance and pray, though soon there’ll come an end to our sadness and our gladness and though I know my neighbours will be kicked out before me (I can try to butter the right biscuits), we will all have to fall eventually and burn again through this October Earth…