December's Orphans (poetry)

 

 

 

December's Orphans

 

 

 

 

They opened my tea chest

and discovered I had become

an infamous monster of filmland

There was no excuse

I could see it coming

could have taken a different road

 

I'd had my run in supernova

went back to being an ordinary star

somehow avoided a black hole

Other planets grow older and more distinct

The crowds are vast and distracted

easy to anger and to lose the point

 

I'm forced to use retro rockets

tired old conformist tropes

to slow re-entry into daily life

Enormous school of shadowy fish

part ahead of my splashdown

aging backward through my dissent

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Pouring Winter rain

in shorts and baby carriage

runs around 7th street corner

How strange the rain a

after its prolonged absence

Puddles in action on a roof

hours later still moving

That it should make this sound

miraculous planet

That drought and desert should be

dangerous planet

That flood or tidal wave

should come down

Darkness in the day

the doors all wash away

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

My capsule became cracked

I was already post-human

intersecting immaterial world

 

Bystanders were flooded

with unfamiliar memories

songs and jungle

jingle bells

bells

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Outside my window

winter storm on the way

gulls carousel past

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Friday 13th

 

Something odd

will come to pass

you may break

 a drinking glass

 

 

 

 

 

 

Rain in rooftop puddle

the moon has burst a bubble

A world sunk in muddle

image capture by the Hubble

 

Under the Long Night Moon

 

 

Last full moon parade

of this dysphoric decade

Thoughts of a world

not God but man has made

 

Under a Long Night Moon

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Epiphenomenal ice pack

recedes into the general water planet

Moisture invades my cracker barrel

 

 

Crisis Climate
 

We sailed so far and vast
that we reached the edge of the world
without meaning to
without knowing it was near

Five days from it we turned about
by then the cataclysm was unavoidable
some of us said it didn't exist
that it was a mirage of the sea

Product of a devil's idle whim
but the sea itself flowed over the chasm
where did it migrate to?
the world afloat in a shoreless sea

A snow squall vanished
the ship's denouement
we were long past the last longitude
there was no turning about







Libido wants to satisfy itself
That doesn't mean it's evil
The ego wants to gratify itself
Pop goes the evil




How great are the humble
How fatuous are the famous







The yelp of a dog in the manger
kneeling at the foot of the Baby
asleep in the animal feed
You are going to give him
a Christ complex
Seen baby-worship before
but this is ridiculous
He does look great though
Take thee and eat?
 not for dogs

To the Trained Ear

 

I contrived to lead a life

in which I was exposed only

to naturally occurring noises

 

Aeolian harp in a glade

to recall the idea of music

brought indoors in Winter

 

When songbirds are gone

when at night I heard

wind and many wolves

 

 

 

 

 

December 2019

 

 

 

 

 

 


Conservatory of Flowers
Golden Gate Park



 

Fade Into November (poetry)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Fade Into November




Whenever I find myself growing grim
about the mouth, whenever it is
a damp, drizzly November in my soul...
I take to a ship

                        Herman Melville

 

 

The quicksand in the hour glass

I've had hours of ill repute

Once your feet are buried

they don't return

Trident gate to the casino of loss

Iron fence topped

by playing card symbols

Breech is inevitable

lightning felled the oak

Lawnmower man circles back

tickets inserted in the brim

of his mad hat

All play by surrational rules

internal hallways

Women record countless

subconscious details

intuition as pattern recognition

People become atmospheric

to provide a skeleton for the future

from open-air pauper

  to entombed billionaire

Jailers who jingled the keys

thrown now into solitary

Gradually move out onto a branch

past death row and gas chamber

One maybe granted temporary clemency

Still must eat and sleep

all much earlier though

Edenic garden no clothes

no shame as promised

and as expected

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I leave the lights on

so I don't sleep forever

 

I wish I could say otherwise

If I could I'd go elsewhere

 

 

We all have to serve out

our life sentences

I opened my cell door

 before they could lock it

And went out on a spacewalk

in the hallway

in the stairway

in the Milky Way

 

Onset of the Cold
 

Unmistakable instinctual
response to cold and dark
first ice in the marshes
Wooden houses on hillsides
howl in the gale
Woodland creatures retreat
into nooks and nests
Rotund bears drowse
on fermented fruit
Armies of starlings
retrieve denuded seeds
Will-o-wisps foxfire frost fairies
Long nights of vagrant stars
each a survival test
 Haunted past--cartons of books
where nobody looks
 the tire chains approach
Bleak days of inverted gray
Rain and wind moves a iron skull
one hundred years closer
to the Canadian falls
Islands not there anymore
Yukon Klondike Bering Strait
move in next door
to the Northern temperate zone
all farther and further away
Blown away by the wind
Downpour
 in the mountains of madness








Redness in the trees
sleek white clouds are shaped like sharks
train tracks remote cries








Before I awake antlers appear like fungi
everywhere I had slept the night
rolling around on a mossy hillside
Tributaries of the soil emissaries
just as shrubs and trees
breezy though like fluent coral
branches in an ocean current
Nudibranch undulate in the sea
before land-locked cactus
I wave back in return reflex
from my bed in Emeryville
Where I flew to Micronesia
and back in less time than
 the velvet antlers took to grow
Passing clouds leaves ragged patches
tatterdemalion
on the asymmetrical racks
lungs and viscera
the heads of Easter Island
buried here upside down



 

 

 

After the clock change

dinner in early darkness

poignancy of time






November is the Norway of the Year

in fact is drear
in a country house
newly leafless trees
crowd the lamplight
the clocks turned back
it's twilight time
slow motion amber
tree sap verdigris
the winds hurdy-gurdy
fleshy leaves moist
from phantom rain squall
passed through
 overnight as I slept
midnight view from the loft
November fields blanched
in starlight in moonlight
hallucinatory figure
furtive passage bundled-up
steals diagonal trespass
old stone walls subdivide
flaxen fields into
grave-spilled stones






Notes in English

Shadenfreude for a schizoid
scholarly schmuck
trying to split the schnitzel
without having to spend a lot
on the schmaltz





 

 One saw end times coming
they came and went
People ask
What happened to
the Apocalypse?
It's here, it's now
It's every minute
all the time

 

 

Storm's chaos subsides
jarring cold mundane rain
battlefield of survival strewn
with household casualties
soggy doggy digs
turmoil under the overpasses
bomb cyclone versus
pvc sheets old doors

Sound like fire-crackers
big drops of wind-driven rain
on November's window
first storm a real squall
Throw open the window
Sheets of rain twist and roil
flags whip relentless
rain comes inside on me

People outside huddle
under tarps and flimsy tents
spared this weather
dry and mild
until late in the year
now the landlord is here
wind cold rain all at once
cold clouds twist in the wind


  


 an alto trumpet
clarion of coffee time
petite tea kettle

       

November 2019

 

 

 

October Poem Tome

 

October Poem Tome

 

 

 

 

Ad Astra

 

God sent a self-driving car for me

Its destination was encrypted

I got in I had no choice

I went along for the ride

hazy day no horizon

I whistled a sad air

the limo went past the graveyard

and kept on it didn't stop

I passed by granite cathedrals

outdoor stations-of-the-cross

The vehicle knew where

I did not
 

The sky resembled a frozen lake

Nightfall and the misty stars

The stars said I was headed north

We never stopped--Water

 apricots nuts cheese and flatbread

had been laid in

The landscape at night was white

Mountainous silhouettes rose and fell

 

The limo came to a halt

I got out without stopping

Lastly a vast green bar in space

growing larger enveloping the full moon

throwing tentacles of astral color

to all horizons of a trembling earth

Darkness gave way to utter splendor

irrational astonishment

Mind heading heavenward 

on its journey to the stars

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Black Apples of Tibet

 

I conceived of a new planetary system

that revolved around me

a police car gum machine panache

No one would have to know

I'd exist only to those

in my perceptual spectrum

And walk around undersea cities

and forests ablaze

Still stopping at red lights

wearing clothes and passing

for normative

Comets and mystic moons

mine alone to behold

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

10 seagulls at dusk

harass a strange bird roosting

on the dark tower

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

100 crows cross

7th street in Chinatown

flocks of October

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Hares go forth after dark

except in mating season

happening naturally in march

 

 

 

 

 

 

Tate in 85

I went deep into Blake's light

quiet few people

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

When a broke grifter in a cheap hotel

notices the Gideon's bible

he sees his next career move

 

 

 

 

Sometimes I wonder if there is

anyone pervy enough to really dig

my deformity

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Punk: Not a mode of music or dress but permanent revolution

a dialectic between mindless positivism

and the great negativistic hand

 

 

 

 

 

 

Urban Nighttime Soundscape

 

Sirens at bed time

get so you no longer notice

Trains like old memories

fading as they go

Street sleepers may argue

usually just before dark

Weaponized motorcycles

a moving gun show parade

Some with ultra loud music

hostile militarized radio

All audio phenomena embedded

in the highway's toxic whisper

 

 

 

 

Yacht Club Bench Point

 

barefoot in clover

marine cloud blankets the coast

bridges at high points only

jeep pulls up with bullhorn

boat anchored fishing

in the marina channel

get lost

other side of the breakwater

saltwater expanse like manifest mind

existence in cleavage in the trees

refracted in all ways

congeals bright fungus like

berkeley cops roll by

 the outskirts on the bay

past the edge of town

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

In search of the lost papyrus

on which my first poem was read

Nothing to do with Osiris

Nothing to do with the dead

 

 

I saw a ship behind the sun

Coming my way

Couldn't make it out in the brilliance

Then behind it three ships

Then another row of five

then nine an armada

fanning out behind

The lead ship of the sun

 

 

 

 

 

 

Against my will

I started to become a monster

I was in farmland a lot

terrible animal husbandry

The old Onanist

who wore out his balls

Hitler gave anti-Semitism

a bad name

I found the backdoor to Hell

Not to get in but to get out

I wrote a long letter to God

to ask for forgiveness again

His métier after all

Imagine the worst person in the world

having the most military might

Would a guillotine be too much?

Special rendition to a secret prison?

Plea bargain for waterboarding at Gitmo

the Art of the Deal
Fate's inexplicable arrow

 

 

 

 

Haunted by the eccentric

eschatologist

who sleeps in a mummy bag

inside an Egyptic sarcophagus

now afloat in a flooded basement

sand and seawater

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 


 

 

 The world to be seen and unseen
so much seen once and not seen again
the finite unspooling of subjective perception
water in a infinite glacial state
all perception exists as one mind
outside of time dreaming in
dreaming the world of time
birth death incidents along the road
mainly monotonous tarmac
some tar pits some mere mirage
Epiphanous amnesties
mild neuronic action out of doors
Tuning forks wind down
Mo more asphalt no more
gas stations no more cows
Wind and weather
scrub the crime scene
sand in the hourglass
cease to add up
the ambiguous incalculable





 

 

 

 

Great Ohlone rock

cresting the sunlit ridge top

alone not for long

Over three clear nights

never saw the Hunter's moon

cold breeze from the Gate





Devil's Wind

Leaves and debris flags and bags
hurdy gurdy in the wild breeze
the first sun seems wan
The lacuna of the universe
the black hole at the galactic center
indeed a worm hole may be
Life comes back fast
after great extinction events
new aggressive spiders

 

 

The Past Thundered Past
 Old Amherst Mass

(memoir of grimoire)

Emily's for Halloween
One more empty haunted edifice
On Pleasant Street was it?
Call it Pleasant Street
The busy little liquor store
The dismal City Hall
restroom open at night
A fountain a church
Sidewalks rolled up and stored
for morning with glad rags strewn
The former Folklore Center
A rustic store for country food in bulk
 a freaked-out peaceful life
Fahey LPs esoteric books
for a conjectural world view
Borderland conjuring
Log's bar eagerly entered
easily forgotten nights
when Sticky Fingers was new
Ramshackle topiary hut out back
Smoke lodge for a fleeting house

The cemetery a stone's throw away
Austere Dickinson plot
Legend hidden by a wrought iron fence
Stars roll upward from burial mounds
The Dickinson estate behind a row of trees
Its garden I spectered alone
on gelatinous nights set in  moonlight
Slept in a drowsy meadow
just down the railroad tracks
Through the Pioneer Valley chilly night
light still on up late
Had a crummy place here one year
How gleeful it was to live
Somewhat poor and young
copious hashish and laughter
Throwing open the bathroom window
in wee wee hours
to watched the train thunder
just below


Mad face paintings a blue guru
white-washed skull mask
Nosferatu skull cap
Bonfire at Erik the Rat's
in feral Belchertown
Sunken eyes and a ruffled shirt
blonde succubus on either arm
New England rocked the cradle
on All Hallow's Eve






Head of the Estuary



1.
Squadron of sea birds
hover high over--shadows
on distant high-rise



2.
The church foyer lit
sunlight on a baptism font
ineffable organ chord



3.
World reassembling
the Cleveland Cascade respite
as the world cascades



4.
So quiet the peace
seven silent geese passed
water turns the page










Three ravens keep
a open eye
waiting for me
to pass by
 

 

 

 

October

2019

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Rhymes of June

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Rhymes of June

 

 

 

 

 

 

Endless game of chance

a crow finds a playing card

flies onto a roof

 

 

 

 

 

New World Theology

 

 

Jesus summoned the Elder-Father

and distracted the Indians

with a cover wagon train

He summoned unto him

His flying saucer

Promising those left behind

in the desert

To be saints at a later date

their own eventual planet

All of those present swore

certainty that this Man

was Jesus of Nazareth

Jehova's witnesses there

avowed that he looked

a little like Gabby Hayes

Elder-Father Smith

carrier of the golden tablets

was never seen again

in this world

 

 

 

 

 

Breezy sunlight here

fog rolls the peninsula

sea birds or jet plane

 

 

 

 

 

Electric green moss

tide marks on colorful rocks

tide at eye level

 

 

 

 

I can't hear the waves

forgot to remove earplugs

only half the grace

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Take off my sandals

and walk the water walkway

lonely girl watches

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

14 kite surfers

not as thrilling or profound

as two pelicans

 

 

 

After the Recent Deluge

1.

My house wasn't always a houseboat
in fact it wasn't always a boat
My home wasn't very close to a river
but it was on a hundred year flood plain
and today it's all water
To my surprise and salvation
it broke away from its foundation
the bottom layer was built watertight
By the eschatologist
 that dreamed-up the place
And my household floated away
My cat and whatever wildlife
  taken refuge from the elements
Swifts and other squatters who nest
in the ornate Victorian woodwork
of the towers the belfry the rooftop
Over the thick downstairs windows
Along for the journey heaved
 Headlong into the gulf below
The garden gate served as a rudder
I set it for a general direction
Dark coast a few lonely street lights
Heat lightning on irreal bayou
toward a crevice in the stars







 

 

 

 

 

 

June 2019

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Au Printemps

 

 

 

 

 

For the divine Perdition
of Idleness in Spring 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Au Printemps

 

 

 

 

 

In The Outback

 

A woodpecker and his allies

Storm the woods where I lay sleeping

Crows exchanged themselves with shadows

Three kingfishers from the East

Bearing acorns and fur

A worm for your delectation

A rose to a dog is undistinguished unless

It has been urinated on by another dog

Carpenter ants redo my deck

Trees provide ladders and clocks

The world of birds goes off at once

At dusk and at dawn

A street light in a deep forest

Invites a galactic blizzard of moths

In Spring the wilderness awakens

Males pursue arborial females

Frogs constitute a wall of sound

Thrumming

Thrumming the stubborn heart

That insists on beating

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Gulls so high and free

encircle and encircle

downtown high-rise jail

 

 

 

 

 

 We never know how high we are
Till we are asked to rise

 

 

 

For a long time I thought

I was going crazy

Madness now no longer

much of a threat

More like arthritis but less so

more like a common cold

contagious unremarkable

ubiquitous at the last

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

As I cross the street

a crow finds a playing card

flies onto a roof

 

 

 

I extinguished my joint
with whiskey and water
a trace a trace
I've had my fill 

 

 

 

Train Tracks by Emily's Place


The amative Bonobo prefers
food offered by a bully
The frightened mistake
the ruthless for a champion

Arrogance never sees the silent train
of comeuppance and pain








Gone Medieval Posterior


In a tourist cottage
in the Bavarian Alps
three found murdered
with crossbow bolts
The crossbows were left
at the scene of the crime
As if asleep
encircled in
a forest of thorns






The earth is divided
into that which is predominantly water
and that which is not water
and of course a third
air made of gases
water and
particulate matter









And the Sea should part
And show a further Sea--



I sailed beyond the pale
entered a new envelope

I saw beyond the veil
leapt to it as an antelope

I sailed beyond the pale
 it was all all to no avail






Downpour
behind the railroad tacks
and the wind
behind the traffic rumble
the commonplace gunshots
Chinatown firecrackers
I thought I heard
thunder






The rain taps relentlessly
what does it want?
what do you want?






The perfection
the finality
My Savior in my heart
and my perception of reality






With a face on it
translucent plastic bag floats
the estuary

 

late evening sunlight
the gulls fly purposefully
and inscrutably






My kettle whistles
I'm a little teacup song
come back as a ghost






The survival lust
of the multitude
disgusts
me

manifest destiny

I trusted that the epiphany I felt
couldn't help but transform itself
into literature

I sued the future
based on the past


All that was promised
will arrive at last






A cold day in May
on the Blessed Mother's lawn
Mom changes nappy






I do believe
and it do behoove
whenever I see
life is a groove

   



Valley of the Waterfalls

Great waters flow
across a plateau
no where to go
but down


Circular crater valley
waterfalls surround a lost society
myths and songs unaltered
No longer a way to get out
unnavigable river high cliffs
to an impassable wilderness
When it rains not enough air
Inhabitants get pleurisy die young
Icy rain freezes the temple
Salt corrodes the ancient pillars
 isolated civilization
farms fishing small game
Sugar skulls dissolve in the rain
White noise of the waterfall
at the foot of the bed










Shadow play of leaves
new light on the window frame
the trees they grow tall








Everyday the radio says
it's a mild day
I go out and it's
variations on windy and cold
even when the sun is out
The radio says it's warm
and I go out I go out
dressed in summer clothes
and it's can I make it home
before I fall asleep
in the figurative snow
that desperate
Wind clouds even rain
wind off the bay
the sea beyond
skeletons in the fog
cold that moves through you








Lighting Spring-green trees
late sunlight down seventh
everybody sees







 

 May 2019

 

(lines from Emily Dickenson) 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Ghost of Notre-Dame Haunts the Holy Week

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Ghost of Notre Dame

Haunts the Holy Week

My photo of candles years ago

votive chaos theory

demons and prophets

a vertical lobster

from the Cathedral façade

Adam and Eve enstoned

kaleidoscopic window

Reliquary of the Crown of Thorns

Roman noir of a young couple

there at night so far from home

pages flipping in the wind

absorb flame memory smoke

Time spent itself

in la Place de Notre Dame

architectural l'horlage

maze inside the Consiergerie

Ste Chapelle labyrinth of jewels

St Severin metaphysical puzzle box

St Julien le Pauvre secret heart

of the Latin quarter

secrets of the Rue Git-le-coeur

Critical mass of the Holy Ghost
Novena at Notre Dame

How high heaven from here

Filigree spire infused in flame

the gargoyles recoil

Nineteenth century addition implodes

Singed palms of Christ's entryway

leads to actual mental Jerusalem

Fire in the medieval forest above

Eerie parallel to Notre Dame church

Fall River Massachusetts

burned to collapse in the early eighties

when a workman's torch

ignited the roof during renovation
Granite Gothic replica
double-towered facade

Majestic horizon forever gone

People who still remember it
go one by one
 the reservoir, the reservation beyond

the Freetown woods

All as well do go

It won't be water

the fire next time

Black hole at the center

 la Voie Lactee

 

 

 

 

 

 

April 2019

 

 

 

 

 

 

April is Poetry Month

 

 

 

 

 

Holy Thursday

Duck Season on San Francisco Bay

early for the ferry

this morning the mother duck

with five live hatchlings in close formation

glides in the estuary shallows

first tender day of Spring weather

air still cold over the Bay

moving through it at our clip

face masked with a black cashmere scarf

as if others didn't already

think me different enough

Bay bridge and cinematic city

well up like 3D FX

most of the sparse passengers

de-board downtown stunned or stoned

We who travel on to the Wharf

brace before the chill

of Thrilling Golden Gate

Art farm Sausalito

in a Cezanne light

harbor seals bark

but our barque sails on

Sidewalks bulge but

the deluge is still to come

Decide I'll walk the main drag today

past the brilliant red buildings

 visible from space

Lurid kitsch horror

entertainment billboards

hover overhead

Old tableau a dummy

overhead in a life preserver

gigantic lighthouse prism

revolve the kaleidoscope

of Fisherman's Wharf

outlandish vehicles

megawatt primary colors

the old Fisherman's neon raincoat

Flowers for the Dungeness crab

on Hyde Street Pier

the tall ships renewed and resplendent

Mild enough walk into frigid water

I liberate the small beach

children and others come and go

Alone again two iridescent ducks swim in

Upend themselves finding food

Small wave tosses one out of the water

onto his feet in the sand no problem

soon another wave lifts both out of the water

they poetically turn it into flight

Overhead a sinister silver plane

with a huge surveillance disk

goes out low past the Gate

and comes back again

Leaving the Port of Oakland

several gunboats were seen racing in

endless anxious preparedness

Big flock of black terns

on waters under the bay bridge

shift when the ferry comes

I've lost the butterfly effect

my heart doesn't flutter

into somersaults  of elation
as it once did

yet peace is briefly held

astonishment of topography

sea and sky orchestrations

the feats and stunts of civilization

the ease of an adventure such as mine

the new eastern span sifts

 Mount Tamalpais

Stop at the Alameda side

two perfect ducks in flight

level with me

returning on the mythic path I just came

estuary trail the Bay bridge and Golden Gate

line up in the shimmer

the warmest day this year

 

metallic full moon

bangs a gong in Chinatown

purple gray light

 

 

 

 

 

 

Easter Outing

 

 

 

 

 

In kite-like solitude

rocks on a submarine walkway

high tide waters with creation look

not dirty old Bay

Two geese both in the seawater

preening they double themselves

kick rapid little kicks

flapping up to walk on water

throwing the heads back

to vibrate against wings

 

Married couple of ducks

on the ramp into the drink

a lone ducks flies over

both recoil instinctually

for a rival duck or a hawk

First kite I watched

flew over to the marina cove

and fell as if off a cliff diving

slender slingshot wings

Past the rocks a fisherman

casts out existentially

 silent sail sound of the waves

ululating a neon green rock

grown heavy in moss

 

The two ducks of Easter

patrol the rail swimming

then come inside with me

From here I hear all the words

 the water makes

Young Mom with blue green hair

her little girl dangles her feet

 in the restless water

Lady with platinum bob

and a stroller

 attempts to feed the wild ducks

They show no interest in her cookies

Little boy shows up throws stuff

at  the ducks

takes off his shirt splashes about

 

Down Crab Cove multitudes

of geese on the water

squadrons squawk loudly

as they peel into flight

Heavy birds flying close by me

I raise my arms to help them

navigate away from me

This repeats itself

until the last group takes off

coming right towards me

I wave my heather denim jacket

they elevate without

changing course

bound to the sky
off we go
rising

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Earth day three planets

in bright indigo twilight

evening star so near

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Easter Mass at last

new life in accidental time

the Cross draped in white

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Saints do not appear to the living

Only Jesus and the Virgin Mary

may appear in corporeal form

He ascended

She was assumed in heaven

Elijah rode a chariot into heaven

but hasn't been seen since

Jesus was last on the mount of Olives

Angels can appear in angelic form

which is not physical material

The Holy Ghost manifests

in metaphysical form

God the Creator

 hasn't been seen on Earth

Since Moses and Mount Sinai

where He appeared as a Burning Bush

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Egret flies below

I flatten slender grasses

try to do no harm

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 April 2019

 

 

April 2019

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Kindness and Cruelty of April (poetry)

 

 

Train Ride Past Diablo

and Back Again

 

 

 

As vast as the clouds and sky

multifarious colors green

the cloud line

the whole topography

everyday to others

fantastical to me

April's mild delirium
bursting out of the
long black-out tunnel
to toy town Orinda
onward to the land
of the ultra green
 

 

cloud shadows on Mount Diablo

a map of another green world

hills in the brilliant sunlight

deep shaded verdure
trees and shadows

cows on a ridge

under palm trees

US and McDonalds flags

one hundred feet over

the Pittsburg flats

photosynthesis of the eyes

and the wind

ultra green expanses

on a rapid train

industrial zone

you never tough the green

 

BART yard of train experiments

variegated green

clouds pass over day-glow green hills

a map of greenness seen from space

miles and miles of brilliant lawn

generally without object or inhabitant

elegantly tall blades of grass

rained on again last night

green glow on the rolling hills

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

the bark of an absent dog

a dead mother

God talked to them

in a voice they could hear

with their ears

voices peel off passing cars

watching you watching you

voices exist on the

psychotic continuum

 

 

I'll make no remark

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Temporary penises occur

as female bearded dragons

grow up

 

 

 

 

 

 

I don't even know what reality
 is supposed to be

it's never been adequately
explained to me

 

 

under a dim pier
a gray wading bird
chilly evening wind






in childlike wonder
successive trees in flower
bus past fairyland






gulls high circling
the film noir Tribune tower
in late afternoon






The brother despaired of himself
and took the road back to the world
The Desert Fathers





Daily life
the world coils inward
as life becomes circumscribed
the commonweal frays
fibrillated edges
thimbles inside of one's gloves
little electric shocks
walk on gilded splinters
third rail warning
outages late arrivals
death on the tracks
material at year zero
never exposed to space
oblivion addicts sleep sitting up
on park bench ziggurat stairways
zebra striped to fool a fly's eye
bee hives unplugged
buzz kill dynamo
the greedy wage war on the needy
borders lined with long term
migrant tents
every mistake gladly repeated
flooded bayous rebuilt
life at the glacial end
Arcimbaldo's principle
the scarecrow laughs at thee
toll for walking down this street
No one was left stranded on the moon
only dunes, only ruins




Holy Thursday

Duck Season on San Francisco Bay

early for the ferry
this morning the mother duck
with five live hatchlings in close formation
glides in the estuary shallows
first tender day of Spring weather
air still cold over the Bay
moving through it at our clip
face masked with a black cashmere scarf
as if others didn't already
think me different enough
Bay bridge and cinematic city
well up like 3D FX
most of the sparse passengers
de-board downtown stunned or stoned
We who travel on to the Wharf
brace before the chill
of Thrilling Golden Gate
Ant farm Sausalito
in a Cezanne light
harbor seals bark
but our barque sails on
Sidewalks bulge but
the deluge is still to come
Decide I'll walk the main drag today
past the brilliant red buildings
 visible from space
Lurid kitsch horror
entertainment billboards
hover overhead
Old tableau a dummy
overhead in a life preserver
gigantic lighthouse prism
revolve the kaleidoscope
of Fisherman's Wharf
outlandish vehicles
megawatt primary colors
the old Fisherman's neon raincoat
Flowers for the Dungeness crab
on Hyde Street Pier
the tall ships renewed and resplendent
Mild enough walk into frigid water
I liberate the small beach
children and others come and go
Alone again two iridescent ducks swim in
Upend themselves finding food
Small wave tosses one out of the water
onto his feet in the sand no problem
soon another wave lifts both out of the water
they poetically turn it into flight
Overhead a sinister silver plane
with a huge surveillance disk
goes out low past the Gate
and comes back again
Leaving the Port of Oakland
several gunboats were seen racing in
endless anxious preparedness

I've lost the butterfly effect
my heart doesn't flutter
into somersaults  as it once did
yet peace was briefly held
astonishment of topography
sea and sky orchestrations
the feats and stunts of civilization
the ease of an adventure such as mine
the new eastern span sifts
 Mount Tamalpais
Stop at the Alameda side
two perfect ducks in flight
level with me
returning on the mythic path I just came
estuary trail the Bay bridge and Golden Gate
line up in the shimmer
the warmest day this year



metallic full moon
bangs a gong in Chinatown
purple gray light


big flock of black terns
waters under the bay bridge
shift when the ferry comes

The Ghost of Notre Dame

Haunts the Holy Week

My photo of candles years ago

votive chaos theory

demons and prophets

a vertical lobster

from the Cathedral façade

Adam and Eve enstoned

kaleidoscopic window

Reliquary of the Crown of Thorns

Roman noir of a young couple

there at night so far from home

pages flipping in the wind

absorb flame memory smoke

Time spent itself

in la Place de Notre Dame

architectural l'horlage

maze inside the Consiergerie

Ste Chapelle labyrinth of jewels

St Severin metaphysical puzzle box

St Julien le Pauvre secret heart

of the Latin quarter

secrets of the Rue Git-le-coeur

Critical mass of the Holy Ghost
Novena at Notre Dame

How high heaven from here

Filigree spire infused in flame

the gargoyles recoil

Nineteenth century addition implodes

Singed palms of Christ's entryway

leads to actual mental Jerusalem

Fire in the medieval forest above

Eerie parallel to Notre Dame church

Fall River Massachusetts

burned to collapse in the early eighties

when a workman's torch

ignited the roof during renovation
Granite Gothic replica
double-towered facade

Majestic horizon forever gone

People who still remember it
go one by one
 the reservoir, the reservation beyond

the Freetown woods

All as well do go

It won't be water

the fire next time
Black hole at the center
 la Voie Lactee

 

 

 April 2019