Isn’t it tragic to be so wise
And profess to know the answers,
Yet I help myself to my most delicious lies
And avoid mirrors like they were cancer.
Can’t get it right – I am still hollow
Inflated, life like sleight of hand,
No deserters; the blind still follow
This blind man across the sand.
0
Big Olaf
Posted: April 23, 1995 in PoetryTags: Beer, Blue, Boy, Monte Carlo, Ocean, Sand, Sunset Cliffs, Wind
Once, while sitting
On a tide-surrounded
Piece of Sunset Cliffs,
I smelled boyhood,
A summer scent:
Warm sand, blue cool ocean,
Seaweed, shells, swells, surf wax;
Coconut tanning oil
SPF 15.
The silence of waves before they break,
Bodyboard rash and sunburns,
The sharp asphault places in the parking lots,
Kicking sand on the backs of your calves
When wearing flip flops.
Bonfires and beer drinking,
Big Olaf’s waffle cones;
Smoke and fireworks and Frisbees,
Barbeques, volleyball leather, and Cokes.
The wet, towel-covered vinyl seats
In the Monte Carlo,
All in one accurate slap
Of a wave and the wind
Gracing my face.
Pine Tree
Posted: April 3, 1995 in PoetryTags: Ant, Boy, Cat, Child, Clouds, Crow, Fly, Life, Monkey, Mother, Sky, Storm, Tree, Wind
I climbed up as far as my courage
And strength would take me
One day in the life of a monkey-boy;
Those branches were spaced
With a long-armed youth in mind –
A kind encouragement
Beckoning boys to the heavens,
That grandfather pine tree still stood
As of the date of this writing,
And it still looks as tall.
Things change as I grow older –
Hey, I thought it might have grown smaller
Like my free time, but
I’ll bet the wind still waves
The top of that tree back and forth
Enough to make a mother faint.
It seemed like yards, side to side,
The crow’s nest on a stormy ship
Clinging to the sparse branches,
Inadvertently gluing myself to the trunk
With pine sap and a boy’s luck,
Feeling the tickle of the ever-curious ants
That make freeways in the channels
Of such an old tree’s bark.
I think climbing tall things
Is conquering the world to a child.
I remember my parent’s roof,
Paved with pink pumice,
Once all stones,
Then weather beaten gravel,
Looking like a picnic blanket –
Something you could almost fall into
And just sink in,
Like a cat for a headrest.
From that altitude, the clouds were nearby:
I was pretty much one with the sky.
I wondered if I believed enough
On the way down,
Could I fly?
The Pier
Posted: April 2, 1995 in PoetryTags: Beach, Beast, Bed, Breast, Clouds, Fish, Pier, Seagull, Sleep, Water, White, Wind
The pier is flung out past the surf
Into the deep water
Like a sleeper’s unconscious arm
Idly hanging over the edge of the bed.
Sunlight scuba dives for the flickers
Of schools of little fish
And warms the top of the waters –
Where the seaweed loosely hangs
Like bead curtains or piles of laundry. –
Frosting on the cake of the beach.
And the seagulls! Clouds wheeling,
Settling, screeching insults at each other
In the dingy parking lot
At the foot of the pier,
Lone white-breasted panhandlers
Eyeing the people fishing from the deck
From a safe distance.
The swirl of wind-borne sand
By the land-bound pilings,
The whorls of water around its sea legs,
Troughs of wave swells
On their way to the board-straddling surfers
Flash the wealth of sea life
Clinging to the stilled beast.
I leapt off the pier once,
Disobeying one of two white-stenciled laws
That decorate the fading grey-green railings:
One: no jumping or diving;
Two: no overhead casting.
I lost all my air on impact;
Between the shock of wallop and water,
It was all I could do to swim in.
The pier teaches endurance in many ways.
Good to know that I can
Still move the pen about
On the paper with some semblance
Of poetry – I think it’s gone
Or going the hopeless boat
I’m rowing is taking on water
At the stern and I can’t look
Forwards because it’s a rowboat
You face to the rear
Lend me your ear
I can’t tell where I’m going!
Brooding Lies
Posted: March 22, 1995 in PoetryTags: Alligator, Ass, Cat, Frog, lilypad, Seed, Swamp, Time, Water
Tonight the Frogg lies brooding
Pulling his lilypad up to his chin
Trying to suppress his inverted grin
From wrinkling his forehead into furrows
Deep enough to plant the weeds
That spring from pressure seeds.
That water which is like time
Still flows through the swamp
He’s caught cat-napping without his bilge pump
Up to his ass in alligators,
I will see you later.
I wish I had a million books,
Not a million bucks
Or bionic looks,
Just books and Bibles
And bundles of paper
And the time to read
And loan them out
To my neighbors.
Recommending and reading
Between covers I’d tarry
And give copies away
Like a hippie’s library.
Pass them around
And get lost for an hour.
But if wishes were water,
I’d never have to shower.
The joy of writing
With a well-inked pen
Is enough to make me
Write again.
Now that I’ve found one
To lie by my bedside
On the open white page
I’ll have the tool to try.
I used to write a lot
When I didn’t write
For a living, but life is
Surprisingly forgiving.
And maybe, just maybe,
Someday something crazy
Will emit from my pen tip
Stunning and startling;
A poetry-trimmed drawing
Of an Archeopterix
One which takes off and
Flies away, makes itself free
Making me content to be me.
Forgive Yourself for Evolving
Posted: March 16, 1995 in PoetryTags: Adam, Animal, Belief, Dream, Dwarf, Elf, Eve, Faerie, Fruit, God, Home, Imagination, Life, Love, Magic, Man, Power, Satan, Story
Perhaps my only true loves
Are those that are inanimate,
Or are animated soley by my
Magical imagination.
They love me like a god –
I give them life, they give me
Love without strings attached.
They could attach their strings
If they ate from that forbidden fruit
That Adam and Eve partook of.
But that is the difference
Between mankind and animals,
Plants, minerals, Elves, Dwarves, and Faeries.
We know we do wrong – we still do it.
Some barrier was broken and we keep on breaking,
We made god to subtly blame for our position.
(We call him Satan)
We told him to forgive us because
It wasn’t in our own power
To forgive ourselves for evolving.
We are now the chosen species of the planet
And, collectively, we all want to go home.
So these inanimate things I animate,
Infusing them with imagination and belief.
I can believe in them because it was I
Who made them real in the first place.
God didn’t make me; I made him
Just like I make a dream a reality,
A story my existence, and item alive
And bounding to and fro with innocent excitement.
Rioting Raindrops
Posted: March 12, 1995 in PoetryTags: Ants, Banshee, Books, Clouds, Demon, Fire, Grey, Hail, Lightning, Mardi Gras, Night, Ocean, Rain, Siver, Soldiers, Storm, Streets, Thunder, Weather, Wind, World
The rain came down
Like cartoon anvils,
Spending itself on the cement
In an assault on the town.
The parachute-less troops
Gathered in the low-lying spots
And took over the streets
In order to regroup.
Rioting raindrops,
Seething and churning,
Swallowing curbs and sidewalks
And the floors of a few shops.
En masse, they moved
Like a swarm of fluid ants,
Chewing up the asphault,
Around, under, and through.
They occupied the intersection
Several steps from my domicile;
A congregation of soldiers
Moshing in misdirection.
The storm drain was debris overrun
By the midnight attack,
Mouth buried in what was handy,
Gagged by the silver-headed ones.
They celebrated down the gutters,
Their comrades swept down from the hills,
Retreating, they left for the ocean
Until their cries became gutters.
Discontent and garbled threats
Of heavy grey clouds yet to come,
Of their shock troops, the hail.
Big drops, little drops; they’re all wet.
Promises of thunder, their drummer boys
Their standards of lightning
And the wind-demons who bear them;
This I hear in the storm’s noise.
I stood in the lee of my apartment
Water draining from my hat and jacket
I watched the fury of the rain banshees
With a certain amount of excitement.
I love the rain and the wind; all weather
Which drives people inside to read books.
They boil kettles and build fires –
An opportunity to be together.
But I like to be outside in the dark
Of wildness and wetness and the glory
When the streets are reclaimed by the Mardi Gras rain
And the world’s turned into an amusement park.
I sold out to the rat race:
My time is spent trivially
Pursuing carrots and cash-ews
Running around like a chicken
With its common sense head cut off.
Important criteria have shifted,
Tabbed into the margins of
My papers.
I’m so busy taking notes
There’s no body, no bulk,
No substance, no spirit,
And the price gets paid in years.
Oh, the price gets paid
In years
From now until then
I make myself miserable
By working to make myself
Happy to write poetry
To the bone I go
To the cancerous lip and lung
To my tattered
Standard
Of living.
A Prayer for Dreams
Posted: March 2, 1995 in PoetryTags: Coin, Damn, Dreams, Hypnos, Memory, Muse, Pen, Vampire
Arise, comic and tragic,
Lustful, passionate, and fluorescent,
Cartoon and video footage,
Scripted and ad lib,
Fanciful, grotesque, and beautiful.
The colorful vampires
Of the dreamlands:
Come hither unto me.
Let me collect you like so many coins
And seal you into prisons
Of memory, typeset, and ink.
Inspire me, muses of Hypnos,
Pour enchantments through
The cylinder of my pen,
Through the netting of my synapses.
Damn me in return
To the folly of being a dreamer,
Of waking ecstatic through empty-handed,
Yet drowning in enigmatic
Gifts from angels.
Remember This in Time
Posted: March 2, 1995 in PoetryTags: Antelope, Blood, Cloud, Faith, Fire, Journal, Yellow
I promise that someday
I will be faithful
To my journal again.
Another sacrifice
To the fires of my economy.
The poet-sap has dried,
Hardened to a cloudy yellow
But I guess beneath
This bark I’ve grown,
The blood still boils
And the words still run
Like antelopes or
Like a persistant brook.
Untitled Poem #200
Posted: March 2, 1995 in PoetryTags: Beach, Clouds, Galaxy, Love, Pier, Van Gogh, Water
I love you even though
We fight and fuss
And make a mess
Of each other.
You forgive.
I like that.
The clouds were herded
Past the pier,
Nearer the horizon
Than the beach;
The sun water colored
As I watched:
The Van Gogh of
Our galaxy.
Imitation of Kitchen by Laura Jensen
Posted: March 1, 1995 in PoetryTags: Brother, Faith, George Michael, Knife, Onion, Red, Sister, Tears
One lone onion
Singing in the kitchen,
Singing in its red net bag,
Singing on my cutting board.
He’s singing “Faith”
By George Michael:
Faith will keep him
Whole and untouched.
My beef stew simmers nearby,
Watching and waiting.
I hide around the corner,
Knife in my hand and
Tears in my eyes —
His brothers and sisters
Made me weep.
George Michael never makes me weep.
Wham!
Icarus splashed when he hit the water.
I was there; I, too, fell
As he fell, when he fell,
Feathers flying all around me,
Sun hot, wax running,
Sweat beading my brow.
He said to me as he regarded the water:
My father wasn’t strong enough
To pump his arms
In those leather strapped wings.
Everything was perfect:
The buckles were tight;
The wax was the best.
And I would have betrayed my kind:
All of the poets, dreamers, and innovators,
The trashy lot who loved me
Because of who I am,
If I didn’t strain to see
The faces of the gods.
Icarus gave Bruegel his ankle
And me this feather.
George
Posted: February 18, 1995 in PoetryTags: Angel, Ape, Child, Closet, Dark, Eden, Feather, Man, Sad, Seagull, Space, Wings
Sometimes I wish I could
Feel all four walls in the dark
From where I sit on this
Thinly carpeted floor –
Again, like a closet,
A most comfortable space
For one sad and lonely
Anthropomorphic ape.
One or two trips to the sunlight
Have sunburned him into
The hypocrisy he despised:
Loss of childhood and
Less of curiosity
Leaves George a more shallow man
And less of a wondrous angel.
Now he collects seagull feathers
For his bedside table
To remind him of
The wingspan he once had
In Eden.
The muse hasn’t abandoned me yet.
Hoping my tongue is as glib
As it can be loose, I fret
In the dark space of early morning
Writing poetry to assuage my heart;
Weighing heavy, almost mourning
That I am done for
As the low self-esteem comes creeping in
To squat on my stomach
And whisper words of seeming wisdom.
The screams and hisses of the coliseum
Cheer for my crucifixion;
The choice now is yours today:
Die of exposure
Or suffocation.
I’m trying to escape;
Now, too late
To unchoose what I chose
What seems like long ago.
The responsibilities come
Steady, now – steady
As the tide churns the sand
On the beach is another
Wrinkle in the lines of my hand.
Roll with the punches, punch drunk;
More are on their way,
There’s no use cursing
About the ones landed yesterday.
You stand on your viewpoint
Like the top of the mountain
As the floods rise,
Carrying off your unicorns.
They, like you
Were too proud for my ark;
For their pride,
We all have horses with no horns.
So tired that I hear a hum
Wherever I go
Like my stereo is on “loud”
With no input.
Doth the well run dry, milord?
Doth the grey matter weaken
And start its journey through your hair?
Your crown lies crooked
Until you seize the strength to right it.
So write it polished burning bright
And chase the Tygers from your nights.
Sam has gone
to the Grey Havens.
Sixteen years of good loving life,
defining the role
of a kitten, a cat:
fat, lazy and sleek,
loving and caring
without seeming to.
My lucky black cat.
thoughts like knives
— no blunt smile —
grinding to sharpen
against the stone of today.
my low self-esteem
smarts when it’s smart,
because nobody hurts me like me.
Evolution Drives the Bus
Posted: December 21, 1994 in PoetryTags: Change, Death, Energy, Power, Spider, Zen
I
rebirth is the sign
I have seen in neon karma,
judging by my scenery.
II
not some paranormal awakening,
nor a Zen-like inner peace:
I am far from stopping.
III
evolution drives the bus;
I’m afraid to lose
what I don’t already have.
IV
potential energy = power,
a force to select the future
that the past dictates I want now.
V
molt like the mad spider
Mordenkainen;
commit yourself to the House of Bedlam.
VI
slough the skin
before it roughens into
the wrinkles you wear forever.
VII
youthfulness is vitality,
the vitality to withstand
change.
VIII
this death must be dyed
to match the colorful shirt
I wish to wear tomorrow to work.
Lost like your keys:
I don’t know how I got here,
Or if I told you
How I got here,
Would you believe?
Looking for my suitable pocket,
Reading the classified ads:
“Secret Garden going bad —
Must have proper key to lock it”.
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