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
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
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
holding a pan of table scraps
she seemed to lose her ability
to stand and melted down
on the concrete stairs
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
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
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
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
