Note to a Closed Site
(or Can’t You Take a Hint)

After the frustration of
Several unanswered inquires
Reference my submissions,
It dawns on me that the site
Is ran by some halfwit asshole
(No relation, no really).  But,
I send them this note anyway,
Which will, no doubt, also go
Unanswered as well.


Up To Date Customer Service

“Pardon me, caller.  At this time,
Due to the new guidelines,
I can no longer address callers
As you and I am not allowed
To use the personal pronouns
He, she, or it.  Also, as the words
They/them are a bit awkward,
I will be using a generic term.
So, cocksucker, how may I be
Of help today?”

 

Mary Jane Makes Groovy Brownies,

says the young man in the long
hair, headband and bell bottoms
in Haight-Ashbury in the seventies.
Gimme a dollar and I’ll sell you pot.

His girlfriend in a long flowered dress
hands me green leaves in a plastic baggie.
I paid for a pot, I say. Pot and weed,
same difference, she says.

Neither of us drink tea in our twenties
so my sister and I bake the leaves in brownies.
It’s probably alfalfa, this Montana girl thinks.
But I didn’t see any cows hanging around.

The brownies are so delicious we can’t
stop eating them so we bag the rest
for the trip to Fisherman’s Wharf.
My sister’s boyfriend is driving us

in his blue bug, me in the backseat.
Whenever I tell him how to drive,
he says:  Give her another brownie.
We all laugh as I gobble it down.

I hand the ice cream man a dime
for the one scoop cone as I lick
the licorice laughing hysterically.
It’s a dollar, he says. I laugh.

It’s a dime in Montana. He barks:
This is California. I laugh even harder.
His face reddens so I reach in my purse
and hand him a greenback.

The four bills he gives me back
float like butterflies in the breeze
and I fly along with them.
She’s stoned, someone says.

Six decades later in Arizona I watch
Willie at ninety in a headband and beard
on the internet claiming his supplement
prevents and cures dementia.

Order it, I tell my husband. Is it Marijuana?
he asks. The advertisement says: Straight
from the cannabis plant and it is legal.
We don’t order it. Being stoned once is enough.

 

The Hunchback of Washington DC
 
There are idiots, then there are idiots. The difference is which one’s a simpleton and which is simply a fool. Charles Laughton was the pope of fools, and Esmarelda rang his bells. Women are like that I suppose, always driving men crazy. But it’s like I always say, it takes a village to raise an idiot and an idiot to raze a village. The president falls down a flight of stairs and launches missile strikes on Mississippi. What a moron. He thinks Hugo was just some hurricane. He’s never even heard of Baudelaire, though he once ate a breakfast croissant. Personally, I find the French quite stimulating. They invent theoretical systems of self-destruction. They go on strike and riot over wages. They lost every war they’ve fought. I think they think too much. Some things even an idiot can figure out, like Brigitte Bardot or that Citroën I once drove, sailing across the level earth on a cloud. 



Postcards from the Deep End
 
I’ve been vacationing on the far side of my mind. The vegetation is thick with green thoughts. The roots tangle and twist into straws that draw deep water. A leopard, or is it a cheetah, rips the still beating heart from a young gazelle. I can smell the iron in its blood dripping from the postcard I bought in Nairobi. Except this is Atlanta and the menu is fried chicken. And though I’ve never been to France, I’ve wept hearing the little sparrow sing. The world is a jungle of scheming predators, most of them human. In the dark places, the teeth of murderers are infallibly white. Once, in Manila, I was hungry and willing to eat the worst of things. The intestines of an animal curled in a steaming bowl of dirty broth. The worms that dug into my gut were a curse that grew with time. Even now my protozoan lover consumes me in his madness. Sometimes I think I’m losing my mind. But that’s all I have to say for now. Having a wonderful time. Wish I were here.
  

SUMMER IS OVER AS THE DARKNESS RETURNS

 
August 14th and summer is already
Gone as i sit here with the heat from
Downstairs coming up through my
Badly insulated floor wearing a damn
Fleece and not 1 but 2 dirty t-shirts
With jeans on firmly and slippers
To keep my feet warm.  Outside the
Wind and rain come down hard and
I pity anyone either holidaying or
Sleeping rough on these damn streets
As their lives will grow harder with
The onset of this bad weather.

This week has frustrated and failed
At almost every turn.  A weekend
Lost when i wanted to be drinking
But somehow people intervened
Driving me back here to my room
To just carry on drinking alone as
I always should be rather than out
There feeling bored of my old
Familiar surroundings.  Then last
Night the horror of madness called
Down my landline but somehow i
Knew it was always going to be
Her and so I ignored its ring and she
Finally got the hint and hung up and
Then desperate to forget i rolled a
Strong one, smoked it and happily
Dazed went off to bed.

Panorama

Clarity of bemused musings
Your opulence is dark
Dimly lit
A cranky of tipsy mahogany high
Locations and Culture
Borrowed and located
Your whiteness is too loud
Before we come to your coastline
A blinding red tissue
Scars and hummingbird's homecoming
Monsoon ended
A panorama of whiteboards
My checkerboard
Until
My familiarity of
Little pinks attached
To your smile.

A WHISKEY INTERMISSION

 
Balcony flowers scent the air.
Street vendors stroll to sell
incense, candles, loose cigarettes.
Road tramps rest on church steps,
pass maps, tips for soup kitchens,
best hand-out, hangout corners.
Telling a story about hot air balloons
and Diamond Bay strippers,
the whiskey poet loafs
outside the Yellow Rose,
playing Mexican Train dominoes
with an Alabama debutante.

Tiles, fingernails, emerald rings clatter
on the tin-top table.
The debutante remarks,
“Rockabilly died on my 6th birthday.”
“At least there was cake,” the poet replies.
Range Rover, gypsy cab, Uber
pause at his streetside table.
Fighter-pilots, boxers,
the richly indolent bring
messages and money.
Outraged Japanese scholars wave
their tanka manifestos.
Evening ring of food trucks arrive
as the afternoon paper headlines:
“Zapata killed; Villa cuts a deal.”

Ignoring the silks and scarves of
the racing season’s final parade,
Army officers and their mistresses
crowding hotel cafes,
chain gangs building
little altars for the dead,
the whiskey poet retrieves his journal,
his cane and coat from the bar-back.
Sunburned, scooping up
change from a twenty,
he sighs a goodbye,
joins the hardhat mestizos walk
toward pickup trucks,
mercados, sunset’s end.

I'm Not Sure

I'm not sure what it is.
Perhaps it's  because I've
been clean ( apart from
weed ) for a year, but my
memories are returning.

Alongside the emotions
that I had forgotten.

It's a very strange thing.
A bit like seeing the past
as if it's a movie.

Except, you feel it, too.

As I said, I'm not sure what
it is.
I'm not sure if I like it, or not.

Sometimes I'm laughing at
the stupid things that my
friends got up to.

Sometimes I feel completely
depressed at the stupid things
that I got up to.

Anyway,
they're the only memories I've
got.

I try my best to enjoy them. 

Derek Walcott


In real life it’s November,
a Wisconsin Saturday of sleet and sweatpants
as I scribble this poem in my messy basement office,
kid toys everywhere, Lego landmines 
and cat litter granules buried deep in the shag.

In my mind, however, I am Derek Walcott
walking barefoot across a beach in Barbados. 
There is no stinking litter box, no bills to pay. 
I am the Poseidon of Poetry, a linen shirt
unbuttoned to my fuzzy navel. 
The churning ocean roars in reverence to its creator. 
A salty breeze blows.
A pink and orange rum runner sits
on a table I carved from harvested teak
as my typewriter waits in a hut. 

Hot damn the magic I will make.
I am the alpha and the omega. 
I am the Lord with a new set of pens.
Today I will write something you will never forget,
while Gary my cat shits over there in the corner.

Wanted: Deadeyes:
Blindfolded,
a poem staggers
onto a blank page
to face a firing squad who,
lucky it,
fire blanks.

A Random Memory

Sometimes,
I'll catch myself
thinking about
those wildflowers
I picked
for you
from the side
of the highway
during that
long road trip
we took,
the little
orange ones
that stayed
in the glovebox
of your Buick
until they crumbled
to dust
like everything else
eventually would.