Maybe we should have knocked

We never met The old neighbor’s boarder But we knew that bare apartment Was filled with something A life, past Ghosts Maybe meaning Gone, now

Her father invented the bolt

Gods roll clouds Like lighted dice Sometimes they let me watch She stirs in the kitchen Hot sauce splattering like a smile She doesn’t know I know Her true name

Under the Water

“Where is it hidden?” she asked the man.  Her eyes pierced his eyes the way only a child’s can. He didn’t answer right away.  He looked down at the way his feet were sinking into the moist sand, his toes disappearing a little.  Then he looked up and gestured toward the seeming chaos of soft breakers rolling toward them.   

“It’s right there,” he said.   “The river is under the water.  Under the surface.” She looked confused. “You can see the surface, the waves coming in,” he continued, “but there is more going on.  Much more.” There were puffy clouds above them and on the horizon.  The sun was easing away toward the other side of the world, and the clouds were coming alive in golden colors. “The river underneath, it goes out beyond.  If you were in that river, even though we would all see the waves coming in, you would be taken away.” She looked up into his face. “There is a river in the sea,” she asked without inflection. “Yes.  There are many rivers in the sea.” “Where do they go?” she asked without pause. The man looked back down at his feet.  He thought of how nice the rough sand felt, pouring in around his toes in a warm but moist embrace. The clouds were lit up brilliantly, and it was hard not to feel buoyant.  He noticed the sound of children laughing, not far off, and a pleasant energy within the scattered throng of beach goers. “I think,” he said, “they lead everywhere; and also all to the same place.” “But stay here,” he said, smiling at her until her curious eyes softened into a laugh and she ran back over the dry sand to her pail.

The beauty of being round

The Buddha head                                fell Fr ag ile As around

Another Day (new song)

A storm passed our town last night Washed out the dreams and the light Hearts should be armored for a fight A heart must fight for what is right Hearts must be right to do what’s right

We walk the wet streets, faces down The weight of clouds takes the sound, but We must fight, not fade away We must not embrace the gray The light will shine another day

Sometimes the road may lead you farther than your soul You’re not alone, You’re not alone Sometimes there seems no path ahead to go You’re not alone, You’re not alone

A storm passed our town last night Washed out the love and the light Hearts must be armored for a fight A heart will fight for what is right We will fight, not fade away We will not embrace the gray The light will shine another day The light will shine Another day

It Was a Good Year

Just waking up gotta thank God I don't know but it seems kinda odd No bad news on TV, no lies Ordered a burger but skipped the fries Losing weight and getting fit Women saying they like my shit Gold’s Gym wants to use my name I told them they have to up their game Economy is down, but the man didn’t axe us Corporations want to pay their taxes Things are even better on the street Folks smiling at cops out on the beat Patrol car took a drunk fool home To an apartment he didn’t even own And the out of towner who was black They didn’t shoot him in the back Saw a Muslim talking with a Jew Laughing over throwing shoes and The Christian church brought everyone in Admitted there is no original sin Some Buddhist Thais spiced up the food I told you that the day was good No one wanted to be on the net There were so many real folks they hadn’t met Face to face, everybody being real I’d almost forgotten how that feels Everyone tossed away their phones And only the Internet was alone There was nothing to hack, and no fake news You could trust what was said and know it was true Politicians were good, and something to note You didn’t have to worry about a vote Today I didn't have to enter the fray I got to say it was a good day ---------------------------------------- Damn this weed, am I that high Mind lost with Lucy in the sky? (Apologies to Ice Cube)

Who buries a lost astronaut?

I never met him, Cupid.  But I heard the stories.  He was a comet in the days when space was still free, and everyone was sending up rockets or welcoming visitors from other worlds.  He soared through the dark night sky of the best clubs, lighting them up, smacking the odd heavenly body on the dance floor and spinning them out of orbit.

One night he bumped into HER, and they wobbled madly about each other, careening.  Tiny people on foreign worlds looked up into the night sky afraid, prepared to join the dinosaurs before them in a horrific end, as chunks of ice and meteors rained down.  Forests were flattened, oceans drained, and worlds destroyed, as cavalier laughs echoed as if from gods in the sky.

They spun off into deep space, twin comets, orbiting about each other, irregular and madly.  They danced until their wobble deepened with a shudder, then flew apart at speeds mere planets can never understand.

Thus she entered my universe.

My science was sound, I was confident, and my rockets strong.  We could ride the night skies together, I felt, cocksure.  

Twenty five years later, I realized we were never flying together.  I was merely flying her wild and crazy way, to be with her, and she was flying into the Sun.

So here I float in my escape pod, inching my way, by the grace of the solar winds, back toward an Earth I always loved, and a place where I once belonged.  Wondering about love.

And what is your story?

How it stacks up

Employer: I’ve got great news.  The feedback has been outstanding, and management has really noticed your work and taken a personal interest in you.  Congratulations.

You: That’s wonderful.  So… what do I get?

Employer: Everything you could want: more opportunity.  Work with a real chance to show what you can do!

You: And if I deliver?

Employer: Even more opportunity!  You could really be going places.

You: So my reward is more work.  More and more work.  Nothing for me, everything for the company.  

Employer: Yes!  Opportunity, Johnson.  Endless opportunity.  Are you with us?

You: Yeah, well OK.  But don’t call me Johnson.  My name is Smith, John Smith.

Employer: Smith?  Smith.  Right.  Wrong stack.  I’m sorry, Smith.  We’re letting you go.

You: Letting me go?!  But you never gave me a chance to prove myself!

Employer: I’m sorry.

You: I could change my name.

Employer: You should have thought of that earlier.

First Traffic Ticket

Boston was on the radio California was calling -- the open road ahead Nothing was in my way

Driving On

Almost touching the concrete median Radio station emerges from the fuzzz And is lost

You forget, for a moment It comes back- A smell of coffee and breakfast The comfort of a warm body beside you Washed down the street invisibly

A taste lingers, a song But you cannot name it Echoing words have lost their hold on you The car started, pulled you along As if there were still miles to go, without a destination

The road ahead loses its shoulders Broadens across your field of view

You look out across that sea Spying cherry blossoms on trees In worlds you’ve never seen Fish that swim blind On the bottom of the sea

A universe hidden Between the white dashes

The fog takes the road in the Summer heat, but You do not blink You think the best days           Smelled like jasmine, to you And felt like a long day on God’s own chain gang Something reveals itself in an asphalt mirage A reflection And is gone

Steerage

It is your sea

Growing sloppy beneath you

Opinions blow against an unfriendly swell

                                      Crashing on your back

Heaven descends with anger Pelting

Water above

            maelstrom below

You hold on

To a tiller of truth

The rudder complaining

Beneath our feet

We lived for wood.

My first memory were the wood crib bars I reached for with tiny fingers and the soft warm mother gathering me up to solve all problems.

I grew and slept in a wood bunk bed, and lived under the solid wood beams of our house.  There was a wood smell, maybe pine.  The smell and the sight meant solid, safe, home.  Wood was the foundation.  The laughter and embrace of fellow soft creatures, mostly a mother, was the warmth.

Father invited us, when we were old enough, to the garage where wood waited.  We mastered tools: hammers, saws, and more, but always there was the sawdust and the smell of the wood given a final glory as we worked it.  We sawed to prove ourselves to the father, but it was the smell we enjoyed.

We never knew a tree then.  We saw trees.  Sometimes we smelled them, but we were so used to the dead wood smell that the smell of living wood was too subtle for us.  We never heard trees. We never knew trees.  Trees were part of the other.

We wondered at the endless tree heights towering over us.  We grew taller and climbed those trees.

Then we grew older, and cut them down.

White Lace for a Scythe

You flirt with me The sky Your destiny Come to me, now, child The arms of the universe are open wide The stars are in your eyes We shall embrace Longer than the count of time Pleasure is the feeling of life Leaving the body I call you home Smile

Draft Scene 1: Herbert’s Clarity

“Well, fuck me!” the girl said.

She was sitting on a bench, screaming her sexual provocation at the man in the suit standing over her.  Herbert watched with great focus, as he watched everything.

The word “fuck” was both bad, and meant sex, Herbert knew.  He kept his nose down in his book, but watched sideways, completely intrigued.

The man had handed the girl some papers, and now she was throwing them back at him.

“Well, fuck you!  And fuck the goddamn system!”

Herbet quickly put his fingers up to hold his eyeballs in.  This was just too much.  His brain could not contain this.  They were going to have sex with each other, probably right there in the park.  And it seemed one or both of them was going to have sex with the system, and he could not even imagine how that might work.  His closed his eyes, then worried his eyeballs might escape through his ears, he covered those.

There was a lot of muffled screaming, but Herbert could not see without opening his eyes, and the pornographics were left to his limited imagination.  Mostly what he saw on the back of his eyelids were geese flying across a blue Canadian sky crisp with the coming Fall.

Some minutes later, Herbert’s alarm chimed and it was time to walk home.  He noticed the muffled screaming had stopped.  He uncovered his ears and then, one by one, opened his eyelids.  The girls was sitting alone on the bench crying.

That’s why sex was bad: it makes girls cry.  Herbert felt smarter and wiser knowing this.  But he had to go.  It was 2:45.

The problem was the girl’s bench was on the way, and he wasn’t sure he was ready to walk by someone who had just had sex.  No, he was sure he was not ready.  He was, however, supposed to come straight home.  He was excellent at geometry.  The purity of his thinking was like torture,

His feet started bouncing, and then his knees.  “You can’t put a V8 in a Port!” he said to himself, and then aloud:

“You can’t put a V8 in a Port!”

The loudness of his own voice surprised him.  The heads of people nearby all turned briefly to see what was going on.  The girl looked up, and then over at him, black streaks running down her face.  Another reason not to have sex, he noted.

He paused, then looked down at his watch.  2:50!  He had to go. Now.

He got up and walked with rapid steps along the invisible line that went from his bench, behind the girl’s bench, and to the sidewalk on the Southwest corner of Tully Street.

Even as his feet staccato-ed along the line, he knew he had to say something.  That’s what people do.

“I’m sorry about your sex,” he said, as he scurried past her bench.

She looked up at him, and for a second he held her wet, stained face in his eyes.  He was glad it was only a moment.

As he gained the corner on Tully, Herbert thought he heard the sound of a girl laughing like a lunatic.

Another reason not to have sex, he noted.  Sex makes people crazy.

Fresh Wind in a Dirty City

I'll read your tea leaves, she said And I basked in her glow The baristas bantered in the background, a jazz percussion on top of the rumble and hiss of Rube Goldberg espresso machines I looked into two pools of Iowa sky And wondered how could I tell her I used a bag

Black Box Damaged

We watched the plane crash Walking away ghosts Bound to this shore One hundred years

We stroll that empty sand Between the world and What is very far away

But in Summer, the white water sang Up around your bare legs, you laughed The smell of the ocean filling you with Life, just under its surface

Proof, I know we thought We touched, as pure spirits do Passing right through each other

There is another world, I tell you Another universe for us Where the plane flies Lands safely, and we walk Into paradise

But that world Is a faded shadow to us now An ocean in a seashell Held to the ear of A child who will never grow

The other gene

You are never alone

A baby sea lion dallying

In the face of hunting sharks

45, and still that voice

It pivoted your whole being once

You say yes to the girl, and feel bad

Like when you burned your hand

Like when you lost your job

Every time you have been injured

You felt guilty

A voice coursing through your lizard veins

Like turpentine Because you had a mother