More Poetry Brute

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

More Poetry Brute

St Valentine's Day

 cold bullets of rain

ecstatic static on the radio

abstract thrill of romantic songs

vicarious moans

misty roses

melancholy Chet Baker

my funny Valentine

saxophoned out of temporal reality

whispering highway nearby

late night BART train sound

hive-like midnight

tomorrow over-rushes

the saint's feast day

love is distant omnipresent

held  aloft in one's faith

joy in one's self  all life

pervasive humor

suffice in the void

between

 

 

 

 

 

One great auric cloud

with a setting sun within it

a fairytale lantern

coming toward me

others rise up as well

in classical gestures of defiance

aereopterix gulls

reweave the tarnishing fabric

the iconic sun gives in to

grey wall of storm

subsuming the Maxfield Parish sky

neglible difference made

to the whirling acrobats

 

the sky the sky

I have a lot of sky

 

 

 

 

 

 

The tide went out and did not stop

Everything we left on the bottom

came back out to shame us

Then the water all came back at once

and it didn't end at the shore

 

Broke at the Altamount pass

and shot through the Caldicott tunnel

Alameda remained underwater

Oakland became its estuary

With high rise mirror buildings

remnants emerging at shoulder length

Seagulls adjust albino raccoons

expected as much

Scavengers came in rowboats

to salvage all that floats

Clocktower goes dark at moonrise

The stars reconnect like ferris wheels

Whales arrive out of curiosity

Too many fish in the sea

All of us eating each other

Kites comprised of sea foam

mount the breeze

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The green hills of now

host stones of forgetfulness

oncoming cloudscapes

 

 

 

 

Winter night of rain

last Fall wildfire smoke snuffed me

chilly wind and rain

 

 

 

 

 in the wind and rain

passersby seen from inside

 my dry windowpane

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The universe is not big enough

for the two of us

 

 

I'm sensual but deep

you dig your own grave

if you go too deep

 

 

If I sleep now

when I awake again

it will be raining

 

 

 

 

The Pit and the Razor

when the very last stroke

scraped my poor throat

 

 

 

 

 

 

I decided

I don't want to hear

what the shitheads

of the world

have to say

 

 

 

 

 

Danger of spending too much time

in the backyard of the mind,

Hours spent idling

in the attic of memory,

The quicksand of

old photographs,

Each turn of the hourglass

may be one's last

 

 

 

 

 

1980

 

A swanky shop used as a polling place

on Post street San Francisco

We came over to vote against Reagan

Where we used to live

where we were still registered

though moved across the bay

On the way back polls still open

the public address voice

of the BART train

in the tunnel under the bay

informed us that Carter

had just conceded the election

at the exact point

of no return

 

 

 

 

 

 

inner radiance

the perpetual sunrise

I sometimes forget

when I stare too long

in the dark pool of myself

light coming on

the happiest day of my life

 

 

 

 

 

Alone between di Chirico buildings

Sunny chilly empty streets

lone figures walk slowly and savor it

A place with less wind

beside the floating lighthouse

the wind in scintillating

reflections on the estuary

clarity of Winter

the sun not weary on my eyes

A long freight train

sounds its deafening horn

Freight cars with graffiti

ten feet tall

Others with fresh red lumber

from forests north of here

tanks tanks tanks

helicopter passes over me

like an unattended thought

National holiday

without joy or purpose

None can celebrate presidents now

People in sleeping bags and refuse

doze on sunlight sidewalks

seek refuge and shelter

few look in their direction

 

 

Highgate cemetery in London 

Some ghoul attacked the grave marker
of economic theorist Karl Marx
I was there many years ago now
a cadre of Chinese Marxists that day
made the pilgrimage as well
Everyone was quietly respectful

Karl Marx bones lie
a-moldering in the grave
Karl Marx'  bones lie
a-moldering in the grave
Workers of the world
remain in chains, remain enslaved

 

One wind made me stop and spin
made me hide in my hood
in a Chinatown neighborhood
Youth society in dessert shops
anywhere out of the high rise
every port in the storm

No take no bills no more
at the bizarre pharmacy
 closes on Saturday afternoons
But a stable mailbox
and no one begs for money
though they let people sleep
on these mean streets

A sidewalk along a wall
has the stored possessions
of the absent dispossessed
The self-sustained camp in tents
under the infernal overpass
where the State in its fairness
no longer forbids the poor to sleep






Occult Scatology


He complained to the city
that the house across the street from him
neglected their gardening
Wild trees and plants were an eyesore
But his neighbor was a witch
and put a sore curse on him
That the next time he moved his bowels
he would not be able to stop

The next morning he entered
his bathroom at his regular hour
Copious continuous excreta
soon filled the commode
What did I eat he wondered
He tried flushing in flux
but after two successful whirl
it soon stopped shut
the steady shift of ejecta continued
across his sink instantly filled
he resumed his enforced extrusion
into his shower bath

Sweating he soon had to
tug the shower's glass door shut
to contain the swelling mass
of firm heavy dejecta
In frantic desperation at last he
climbed on a hamper opening
the laundry chute to his basement
 to crap down its chasm
By dark he had filled the basement
and the crawl space beneath
with this terrifying ejectamenta

At last in shame
mortification and depletion
he fainted and fell over
expiring in the end
of dehydration



Epilogue

Sufficient structural damage
made repair out of the question
His estate was happy to have
 the lot filled in and bulldozed
No buyer ever showed interest
and the place became overgrown
a arboreal glade with animals
herbs and birds
with incredible mushrooms
The lady across the street
seemed more than content
with her new view
with her new neighbors










Rainy escalator
in impoverished Oakland
a wet dollar bill

February 2019

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

  

 

 

 

 

Academy Fight Song

Academy Fight Song:

RAY's Top Ten Films of 2018

with desultory commentary

Wow, what an underwhelming year in film.

None of these films even approach my all time top film list

I saw a total of 11 films so fortunately

the embarrassingly schlocky The Meg didn't have to make this list.

It had a giant shark eat a whale but the greatest special effect

was the hero wearing only a towel in a contrived Chinese meet cute

So here they are not in any immutable order

but pretty much best to worst

 

 

 

Sicario

This was bad mojo but had edgy excitement I crave

Feeds the border security crisis myth but there is no doubting

the murderous excesses of both Mexico and of law enforcement

 

 

Mary Poppins
 

A great new portrayal of Mary by Emily

less impressed by Lin-Manuel Miranda

stagey acting with the high eyebrow eye rolls

A few clunky scenes such as acrobatic bikes

or a hoary music hall bombast

but some genuine elation and stoniness

to suit my stonedness

 

 

 

Mission Impossible: Freefall

 

Nobody has less interest in Tom Cruise than myself

and it's somewhat piteous to see someone of his age

acting the human super hero but between his cool nemesis

and the breathtaking cinematic effects it is a hellish fun ride

The helicopter take-over scene is pure adrenaline

 

 

 

 

 

VICE

 

I have to applaud anything that calls attention

to war and torture criminal Dick Cheney

authoritarian surveillance traitor

 Bale's impersonation actually lacked Cheney's angry

spleenful contempt for the disenfranchised collateral damage

Some egregiously poor taste at times as well

 

 

 

First Man

 

Shake and bake astronauts led a grueling life

rather dull a lot of the time the family

neglect point made again and again

I didn't dig his smarmy best friends acting

but Ryan does fairly well if too introspective

for verisimilitude but after a lot of grim

realistic hardware filming the actual

moonwalk IMAX kicked in like acid

over hashish...per force the climax

was brief but highly rewarding

 

 

 

Mandy
 

Druggy over the top splatter flick yet somehow

intriguing and disturbing in a good way

The Manson family cult leader, the psycho granny

and Mandy herself are all played by quality

English and Irish actors

and Cage is a wonder to behold

 

 

 

 

Green Book

 

It might have been daring in the 1960s

Amusing and not without kicks

 

 

 

Overlord

 

The taking of a death weapon experiment citadel
protected by Nazi zombies

The working title was Overkill

But I suppose it's what it takes to up

the shock and gore quotient

Sort of fun but not mentally  healthy

 

 

 

Black Panther

 

I found this so forgettable I forgot

it was a 2018 film

Last time I go to any Marvel etc

superhero movie whatsoever

As far as it's message I would say

it is escapism take to the level of pandering

Africans had all the wealth and technology all along

but they knew if they used it to help the diaspora

colonists would come and take it

 

 

 

 

BlacKKKlansman

 

Too bad a competent director didn't make this

story it had possibilities

Spike movies as hard as one wishes for him are generally
on the level of farce.
One could accept the cheesy cartoonish acting of his
early indie work but it's of a piece throughout his career.
All the opportunities for suspense or depth
are squandered to make simplistic jokey points

 The litany of what's wrong is topped by the ridiculous
Klan characters: never frightening although
one guy chews the scenery ineffectually acting psycho
while the other chubby one isn't sure if he's drunk or
retarded and is provided as a white Stepin Fetchit
It's an insult to the audience really
and the scene of the fat lady trying to plant a bomb
is so poorly filmed as to be incoherent
Not showing chaos being chaotic
as she dumbly tries again and again to shove it
through a too small mail slot
A mess from start to finish
Two good points: the scene with the black ideologue
giving a fiery speech was electrifying cinema
even as it made me squirm;
and the militant black girlfriend
was highly attractive, charming and sweet.
Like everyone else except for Adam Driver
she couldn't particularly act though

Now one hears Spike attack The Green Door
which certainly had thin sterotypes in the
the white Southerner scenes
But it also had some genuine film acting
and a palpable screenplay

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Poetry Brute

 

Poetry Brute

 

 

Bend back the phone poles

prop up the collapse of reason

such forces are relentless

like the old cemetery

coming through the brick wall 

of subterranean café in Cairo

the disinvited dead

who used to come here for coffee

an arm and a leg protrude

through a moldy fissure

 

One examines the odd newspaper

carriages come up to the boardwalk

cars pass by chains on their wheels

 

Extreme cold moves eastward

over the Alleghenies

and the Adirondack chairs
frozen in the petrified patios
of summer long lost

Shutdown it's hard to restart
frozen pipes bankrupt gas and electric
fraud goes to the top and doesn't stop
a hole in the world opens wide
Fobs stop working in Canada
flaming railroad tracks in Chicago
 

Force fields unknown

introduce themselves

all agreement declared null and void
black hole at the galaxy center
whatever dimension you follow

I summon the shake and bake astronauts
Floating eyeballs blandly
cross the Van Allen belt
insect defense warning
evanescent amphibians

Sea surges extinguish
the burning sphinx
frost quakes the fracked-out planet
network battle for dominance
school closures jack knife no mail







Gusty clouds open
to an epic painting sky
high-flown gulls lace through





a candles are urgent
dreamt it was a tall flame
a hoar-frosted bottle





Made myself a cyclone of love
like a snow cone
 if none avail themselves of it
perhaps it's for the best




as the end of the experiment draws near
one looks for the things one holds dear
status homes and automobiles
don't count yet seem real to us
I walked in trees and clouds
places where things weren't loud
now all my ties are spiritual
at the end of the earthly road
When one's burden is too heavy
one shrugs off one's load of woe




lights in the puddles stipple
all night in the rain
cars whisper by closed windows
in the astonishing mundane rain
a chill wind blows through the flags
the sky tumbles this way from the sea

through the primordial golden gate
past this or that landmass
imaginings of new life
on St Brigid's day
life begins in the rain









Raindrops drum louder
ridiculous crescendo--
Chinese light fireworks









effortless roses from the center of speech
sleepless sleep from beyond the beyond
 the bed is a floating world
of procreation and mortality
railroad tracks circling back
in winter one remembers dreams





Seems like my battery
gets so discouraged
it won't recharge






A cloud armada
spray of crows over the garden
people in the park








I'm too nice for this world
rotten as I am

 

February 2019

 

 

Demi Sleep Cinema (poetry)

 

 

Demi Sleep Cinema

 

 

 

 

blood spurt supernova

men cut themselves with crab claws

iron age cosmos

 

eastern slope of the ice shelf goes south

the swells export one to ice land

the universe forgot it was there

no one is forcing you to listen to it

ancient air bubbles escape

along the borders of the brain

sounds from the next room the others

radio reaches the end of the classical repertoire

the four dimensions

vivaldi's green velvet lp jacket

long player of the wind in an aeloean house

the maze of hallways

stairway to a cul-de-sac

skylight shingled-over 

pot-bellied stove a vast passage

microcosm of the embers

shudder to think of crossing

snow pastures toward winter

after the stormfront left ice

doppleganger world remains

trees stand here for hundreds of years

one knows what to expect

wheeling skies full of bugs

or perfect clouds of plenty

glaciers left boulders just so

scoured the resurgent earth

the three layers within

an invisible carapace

protects our planet

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Edgar Poe stood at the foot of my cradle

looked for him later in Providence

among the spectral old houses

Young and given to folly

I fell in love with melancholy

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Three mere sleeping bags

cold sidewalk near full shelter

nowhere else to go

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Looking above for

super bloody werewolf moon

a face full of rain

 

 

 

 

 

Civil defense burst

into a hayden concerto

with flash flood warning

 

 

 

 

 

 

the rain storm pauses

6 am train traffic blares

earthquake shakes my bed

 

 

 

 

 

 piscine blimp trolls
bay side mount tamalapais
in limitless sky

 

 

 

 

Dream of a jet liner

flying too low over Berkeley

out of my gray window of morning

watch it follow the horizon ominously

crashes far off screen

somewhere south smoke ensues

rising from the crash site

can't get window open to look

grotesque black clouds form

entities overhead

 

Someone in my room

in the aftermath

a young man I tell him

to get out

he leaves then I find

his keys and phone device

he's in the hallway

leaving another apartment

and I give it to him

cute young man but

he didn't knock

 

Later a young couple and

a sad street kid are there

I tell the urchin to go

when he argues over

no cigarette-smoking

The couple remain silently

watching the disaster clouds

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Fretwork

(Notes in English

after Arthur Rimbaud)

 

Not as frisky, not so frivolous

still a frisson to fritter hours

 a bench beneath fritillary flowers

to frolic like frogspawn in a frock coat

Yet fretful of friendly society

the friction the frightful frippery

A Freudian friar on Fridays

fried to a fricassee

by the frills and the frizz

of fringe benefits

A frisbee in the fronds

o my friend

there are no friends

 

 

 

 

 

 

Land of the Cave Bear

 

The fort made of rafts sleeps four

impregnable but for the concealed

entrance to a cave underground

Ten men came into remote wilderness

By five river rafts that fitted together

to form a cube with no door

 

Bad spirits here say the natives

Said to be a lost land of cave bears

Lynx grow to enormous size

Snowshoe paws the size of pillows

Formidable wolverines hold their ground

The Arctic wolf betrayed by scat

 

The fort has slits plugged

with removable slabs of glass

to let in light keep out cold

to permit guns extended

The rafts made of timber

soaked in pitch not subject to flame

under extreme conditions only

by then an empty fort

 

Rumble of hibernating bears

reverberates in the network of caves

 cold subterranean lungs

barely perceptible almost beyond hearing

beyond the light of the torch

 

After building the fort six men

left on foot to rotate back in a year

Four stay for the somber duration

and mine a McGuffin they leave with

when the relief arrives

Yet the men had been tracked back

by evil men working for the rapacious rich

Those that survive a horrendous animal attack

find the fort and lay in watch

can't figure the wood smoke chimney

what it means how they may come and go
the other exit in an rock outcrop unknown
 

 

Decide it's the mine entrance they seek

Their attack is repelled after

death and a fatal wounding soon to die

 

The fort over the earth portal

where the four men sleep

under sweeping torqueing northern lights

 

A night when a 15 foot bear

prowls the roof

sniffing the smoke

 

 

 

Tall ship made of ice
not as first imagined
as a ship encased in ice
but carved of ice
seen translucent in the slow sunlight
elephantine sculpture

Mountain made into a bust
of a leader barely remembered
the tall ship made of ice
narrows down to the water line
then gradually blossoms out
into a vast undersea iceberg

How was it fashioned?
for what possible use or purpose
the ice berg ship proceeds
silently through glacial canyons
a luxury cruise of the damned
no good can come of filthy wealth

An orchestra on deck under borealis
perfervid dancers
fall into the sea heedlessly
off of a retracting esplanade
each couple in turn
interior of shooting gallery

black and white Hollywood back lot








what are my dreams?
my dreams are unseen
the virtual situation is this
echoes in tiled rooms
bells from the steeples below







 

 

 January 2019

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Escape Attempts (poetry)

Escape Attempts

 

 

When it is discovered

that I had a crystal skull

there will be parades

some burros with accordions

boll weevils may undermine

my canonization

questioning

my pre-lapsarian atavism

the webbed practice

poetry that can swim

an effort to get past

the past

 

Ultramarine Mary

Our Lady of the Seas

Seen against

the vanta black night

The thrilling colors

of darkness

 

 

 

 

the night flow

is tremendous

unavoidable with days so brief

inevitably I'm swept out on it

to oppose the system of the stars is futility

storm door banging in the wind

unoccupied houses with the TV on

showing footage of the winds on fritzy screens

children in R.E.M. state vibrate imperceptibly

distant highway not far enough away

silence approached by snow

hibernation in glacial caves

the cave bear eats you to stay warm

store fuel for long months in the void

barefoot in the chilly green grass I see a trail

bird populations empty my behind into the sky

a scrim of clouds outlined in winter sunlight

an ovation of estuarial trees

 

the one I searched for isn't here any longer

so one searches for the one that's left

one continuous field of the mind's movement

with conflicting and confluent patterns

the opened envelope exists

in a universe of love and darkness

epistle from the limitless

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

fake white Xmas tree

looks out of the police station

as lonely as me

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

New Year's Day

 

I've had enough of this day

for a lifetime

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

So-called evangelicals

weaponize so-called

Christianity

 

 

 

 

 

Mew and mewl are synonyms

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Notes in English

(after Arthur Rimbaud in U.K.)

 

Wiretap

 

Wish fulfillment

The winsome wino wore winkle-pickers

and a winning wing collar was wired

for the witching hour wisecrack

a wise guy with wind and wit

wistful well-wishers await his wink

his wisdom a wisp of his wiring

wing-mirror washed with weeping

a wiseacre fakir a witch-doctor

his wintry winnowing wingspan

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Christmas Observed Today

 

Crab Cove to the Point

 

Gone are the avian multitudes

of November

Coots an new green earth

a prehistoric way of walking

Santa hat with fishing pole

Middle-eastern lady with

german shepherd boyfriend

her thin scarf woven prismatic

a fiber optic veil

Walking woman in her holiday

best destroyed jeans

Airliner overhead despite

government shut down

How do you tell his dog people

that this is a bird sanctuary

a lone gull passes by

handrails into high tide

 Dense gulls cluster over

 remote reed oasis

quietude of the opposite shore

until the next vast flight

 

 

three Chinese walk in a row

with identical dogs at intervals

look like edible Chihuahuas

but may not be

California Xmas kids climb

on the rocky shore

Asian lady in inevitable elf hat

Diving birds fish in three

pop back up in placid water

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Solstice-

January 2019

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Solstice Tide

Solstice Tide

 

Meteor Cloud

 

Symbolic lasso

noctilucent curlicue

fifty miles up close

 

 

 

 

 

Things left out of the bible

 

I have to force the door shut

against the nightmare world outside

it gets in any way

hundred-leggers

under the floorboards

The street is a skirmish

one enters into

 

 

 

Stringbean hid his money

in the chimney of a humble cabin

found many years later

it could no longer be spent

Estelle fled toward the Cadillac

Frost on her in the morning

Stringbean's killers missed

money sewn into his pants

his trademark joke pants

they stole his notorious hat

in a dirty parting deed

helped convict them

Nashville 1969

 

 

 

 

 

 

Murmuration of Stars

 

falling dishes

emblazoned with fruit bats

never reach bottom and break

 

cycle around the centripital belt

tumbling excited in mid space

glancing off others

 

in the milky way parthenon

places are palimpsest

to the paleontologist

 

wave after wave got bigger

until the beach tumbled away

and all was sea

 

Another million years of hominids

crack in the accepted timeline

the subterraneans swarm out

 

To join again the living

perhaps get a bite

adding to the long lines

 

Walls of painted figures

mummified cats waited

in the priestess's tomb

 

Soul colors speak directly

for the soul entombed

the sea beyond the West

 

 

 

 

 

 

 Absent pleasure craft

estuary's blank mirror

sun makes slanted eyes

 

 

 

 

 

 

Foot tap on the rail

gull feels it but can't tell where

watches for hand-outs

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

1.

Wind and rain blow past

secretive trees roil and writhe

storm outside and in

 

 

 

 

2.

The street's sleeping rough

furtive traffic forces itself

the night stilled by rain

 

 

 

 

3.

Jack London station

insistent deserted dark

trains sound in the rain

 

 

 

 

 

 

Tell us your dream of dreams

your most forbidden forests

where nothing is impossible

it seems

 

Slender trees grew in too close

labyrinthine thickets

of briar and rose

 

Bears and painted wolves

the theater comes only at night

moon flowers and night herons

 

Between Our Lady of Lourdes

and Christ the Light

Fairyland and the estuary

Garden of earthly delight

 

 

 

 

 

 

December 2018

 

 

 

 

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