Cigarbox Manuscript

Cigar-box Manuscript

 

 

 

 

 

Deep purple elliptical clouds

over the railroad

Instinct leads me to water

 

the west aglow

a highway of gulls

they fly up to the cranes

 

Then over the estuary

to the Alameda side

spellbound stood I

 

Watching the conflicting currents

in chiaroscuro

and turn to look south

 

There it is

the pink
 pink

pink moon

 

 

 

 

 

 

By a strange pre-ordained

chain of events

 dropped the joint

in a glass of water

 

Not for so long a time

I can even remember ever

a mighty holiday joint

 

Dried out it had

an odd aftertaste

nevertheless

 

It still pulled

the figurative rabbit

out of the silk top hat

 

 

 

 

Civilization runs out

empty calendar grid

pipe lines unfinished

spewing a tidal wave

of regression

 

tar pits

reduced

to primordial ooze

skin tannery

tattoo beauty parlor

 

Robotic empty bus goes by

obscure canned foods

left on street corners

the unreal real

appears where it wasn't

no newspapers to stain

the men in uniform

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The earliest poem

was by a cave man

when his cave felt sad

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Vote for Me

 

I have proven that

I'm protuberant

time and time again

 

I have demonstrated

that I will reach

into negative numbers

 

To stoop lower than my opponent

I have excavated the ground

below the bottom of the barrel

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I must go back

 to my former floorboards

I would think about them

strangely creeping in

to fill a room

 

Put up screens

in avoidance

of a situation I let settle in

an imaginary 

woodstove

  

Lumber from the environs

branches and boards all burn

neighbors noted

the wood smoke

in white winter

 

Mild panic when the paper boy

comes around collecting

strange cooking in sepia rooms

radio Sally Go Round the Roses

while they counted out coins

 

the herald news added inserts

to  deliver with no extra pay

found down the sewer

 Reported my brother

lost his paper route

 

 

Side street soda pop distributor

metal signs for Nehi RC Cola
racks all bottles then

the jukebox jobber sold

used 45s for a quarter

Walking in the Rain

 

On a fence behind

a Protestant church I slipped

impaled on chain link

got stuck and got free of it

makes you stronger

 

Next route closer to home

a bar room where a guy yelled

 get a haircut you look like a girl

at my Beatle bangs

every day

 

Strange agrarian yards

a culinary rabbitry

exotic hot dog place

 

Across a schoolyard

to another house

Two papers an old lady

on the second floor

I'd passed her once before

 

This day on the front steps
 holding a pan of table scraps

she seemed to lose her ability

to stand and melted down
on the concrete stairs

her head hit the walk

she was bloodied

I leapt down to help her
she was mumbling
didn't sound like English
 I saw her head
 lowered her again
Leapt back to a door
on the first floor
Upset lady took over
and bid me on my way

At the collection day
the middle-aged lady
told me not to leave a paper
on the second floor any more
the old lady died







They don't give second chances
and they don't give you a clue
all you get is the time
assigned to you





Tree at the top of the forest
Crow at the top of the tree
Look at the world before us
Crow at the top of the tree






Ghost Ship Anniversary

Flag at half mast
over the courthouse
for the young artists
that burned
they never saw it coming
never seem to learn






 

 

 

 

 

 Gently on my eyes
 the coots moving down the cove
some people talking





trains at midnight
sentimental to notice
empty time passing





jettisoned refuge
rubbish satellites
of the repression belt
exceed the plasma membrane
you're on your way
to the stars
dream along with me
rupture the rapture
initiate escape plan
airlock the exits
if exits exist





I refused to shut up
he brought down the broadsword
on the center of my head
before I finished talking
my tongue spoke
on both sides of the issue







The Soul cannot thrive
in the absence of a garden

--Thomas More




 

 

 In Greenland
 a colorless cigar-shaped shark
moves 500 years through icy seas
worm-like parasites
on luminous eyes
hypnotize
those about to die

Razor-like skin teeth
hallucinogenic meat
stagger around shark drunk
in a crevasse of dirty snow
up to our shoulders
in a treeless plain
midnight sunlight jigsaw fiords
moody stretches of sea
weather-battered islands
barnacles on the shark skin coast

Moskstraumen
a system of whirlpools
formed in the bad dreams
 the sailors of Norway
afloat in a rubber boat
the world's full of mirrors
the sea turns inky
and without rest

Dana octopus squid
each branch is lit
flashing in attack
millions of sharks each year
killed as dangerous predators
by those who lose less than twenty
to the sharks of the world
On dying oceans
the abysmal set out
into an imaginary abyss