Wasn’t I just here
Dragging the hose to the top of this hill
When Mom wasn’t looking, on the phone
Eroding the soil to catch it
At the bottom with a friend, shovels, and a dam
Before it floods my parent’s bedroom?
Wasn’t I just here, throwing a party
Snapped sprinkler heads and underage drinking?
Wasn’t I just here planting this sapling
That towers above me – does she remember
Me saving her from my chores of cleanup?
Wasn’t I just here, parking the Monte Carlo
One tire up on the curb
And staggering into the house on drugs?
Wasn’t I just on my way to the Nickels
To fuck around with high school experiments:
How much Jim Beam can I drink
Before I drown or forget whose breasts I am holding?
Wasn’t I just around the corner
Cursing up a storm just to roll those words?
Wasn’t I drinking Cisco just the other night
And shooting pool with the MH Posse?
I thought I was just down at Nobes
Throwing stolen pallets off the cliff
And leaping through the fire with my Mickeys.
Could have sworn I was just at Nati’s
While my parents told our favorite waitress
That they were so proud of Kyle and I.
Wasn’t I the one who broke Mom’s last wind chime,
And threw my Dad against the breezeway wall
When he tried to stop me from running away again?
Didn’t I just lie to Dad about
Doing all my chores but I didn’t coil the hose?
Wasn’t that just me and Gary
Doing stupid hazardous tricks of that stolen launch ramp?
Wasn’t that me the other day
Looking down from the top of the pine tree
At my hysterical mother telling me to come down
And powerless to do anything about it?
Didn’t I just steal my first Penthouse
From the neighbor’s garage
And see Venus, Venus, Venus
In three color pictorals?
Don’t I get my $5 allowance now, Dad?
I want to go buy Lemonheads at Delta Drug.
Didn’t I just have those army men
And Matchbox Cars
That Dad keeps digging out of the backyard?
I swear that I just read the pain
In Jared’s poetry and thought that I could do that.
Wasn’t I just hammering my drum set
In the garage to “We Built This City”?
Where are Samwise and Frodo;
They were around
Just a second ago.
And I thought I saw Grandma and Grandpa
Last weekend for miniature golf;
How come Grandpa always won?
Wasn’t I just here with Karen, with Laura,
With Dawn, with someone else?
Wasn’t I just here?
Posts Tagged ‘Car’
Wasn’t I Just Here?
Posted: May 9, 2002 in PoetryTags: Alcohol, Breast, Car, Dawn, Drum, Father, Friend, Frodo, Gary, Grandma, Grandpa, Jared, Karen, Kyle, Laura, Man, Mission Hills, Monte Carlo, Mother, Nickels, Nobes, Penthouse, Samwise, Tree, Venus
You don’t know what you’ve done
Wrecked the car by going too fast
And I along for the ride
Get the lash of blame
Because I pumped the gas.
Your shirt has come undone
These windows are steamed from the inside
Oh? What? This stupid game
That can’t survive the morning sun;
Now just memories from my past.
And as the tires start to slide
And as you search my fevered eyes
Bare shoulders spangled with drops of rain
Realizing that we’ve crashed
Because nothing stays the same.
Hang On to the Rope
Posted: June 26, 1995 in PoetryTags: Bones, Car, Dance, Eye, Fire, Hammer, Home, Ivy, Mind, Muscle, Rock, Sing, Steel
I wish I could string and sell
These beads of sweat;
They keep dripping in my eyes
And leaping
From the tip of my nose.
I can’t stop pulling on this rope –
The mine car can’t slip any further
Down those tracks.
I don’t know why I took this job
But it’s a challenge
And I hurt in every bone.
I’ve found muscles I never knew I had.
They’re singing so they must be helping.
I know I am never going home again.
This firelight and the ring of the hammers
On steel bars punching through the rock,
They dance in the furrows of my limbs;
I’m drenched because my mind
Hasn’t grown into this wiry body.
Veins like gnarled ivy,
Tendons like Brazilian peppers’ roots,
Fingers and arms like acacia limbs.
coming calling
Posted: December 13, 1994 in PoetryTags: Beauty, Car, Father, Grey, Horse, Leaves, Light, Moon, Mountains, Night, Sky, Snow, Wind, Window
The snow has touched the mountaintops
And the leaves drift on the ground.
My breath is grey before my face
As I’m walking into town.
I left my car parked in the drive;
I wished to go on foot.
A whim the moon brought to my thoughts
When I laced my father’s boots.
When I come calling at your house
I’ll check to see that your light shows.
If it’s off, I’ll admire the frost
A moment, then I’ll go.
Sometimes I won’t see one car pass
Going either way.
The wind spins papers through the dancing trees;
They keep my footsteps gay.
The silent night and the Christmas lights,
The pine-bough’s fresh perfume;
The ribbons and wreaths and lost Autumn leaves —
They all point my way to you.
When I come calling at your house,
I’ll check to see that your light’s on.
If it is out, I’ll leave without
Telling you that I have gone.
The walk back home is always long,
But the beauty still remains.
I imagine a sleigh, two horses; some hay,
And my hands upon the reins.
The moon is calm in the darkened sky
It silvers the windowsills.
I climb into bed with you in my head;
Stuff for these poems I build.
When I come calling at your house,
I’ll check to see if you’ve lit your light,
For if it’s not, then I guess you forgot,
And I can’t come and say goodnight.
Something I Haven’t Quite Finished Yet
Posted: August 1, 1994 in PoetryTags: Car, Eye, Rhythm, Sand, Sky, Song, Stars, Wind
To the hip-hop rhythm of my break-beat bounce
I sing sun stars surf stoopid something amounts
To a funky fresh freestyle flowing fast and far
from the breakers to the speakers in the trunk of your car.
I get a little sparkle like the wind in my eye
When the sun is shining steady from the stretch of the sky.
Outside doubles dating skating surfing and tanning
Hacky-sacking frisbee throwing bubble blowing — outstanding!
Groove, move and schmoove like a rubberband.
Take a dip in the drink and dry out on the sand…
I felt like this:
We were driving
at the high speeds of bliss
when we both forgot
to watch where we were going.
When I finally came to my senses,
I found I couldn’t steer without you helping;
you were transfixed
by a comet;
something outside the car window
that I couldn’t pay attention to.
I was asking, then pleading, then screaming,
then begging for your help
to bring the helm around
and you hesitated so long,
it was too late.
The vehicle fell apart around us
and you were desperately oblivious,
terribly hesitant;
an agnostic at the gates of heaven
holding up the line.
We took out several innocent bystanders
after we tumbled end over end.
The agony of defeat.
And I climbed out of the wreckage first,
while you were still looking for the comet.
The hero that I thought I was being,
I went back in to save you,
two, three, four – countless times.
I offered to help you,
with your mangled heart pinned under the ruins
of our relationship, our friendship,
and your hesitancy horrified me again
and again.
I tried for every reason I could think of;
I tried after it became a destructive, dangerous habit,
sacrificing myself to lend you a hand.
But you’re still hesitant and uncomprehending,
wavering, vacillating like a sine wave,
and I have another ride to catch.
I never saw what you saw in the scenery around here,
or if I did, it wasn’t a comet.
I’m walking away from you and the wreck,
trying to stop the shivers of bitterness,
trying to forgive.
I’ve thumbed another ride on the turnpike,
and she was bothered that I kept looking back
to see if you’d come to a decision.
That’s far behind me now;
I don’t look back,
but I wouldn’t mind a letter when you’re out and OK.
Spare Tires and Empty Alleys
Posted: November 17, 1993 in PoetryTags: Angel, Blood, Car, God, Life, Point Loma, Smoke, Snake, Sword, Time, Trash
I used to roll spare tires
down alleys in Point Loma
to see how many streets they’d cross
before stopping:
against a trash can or a moving car,
a cinderblock wall or a pile of dirt.
Stupid things is what I thought.
Why’d they stop there; it could have kept going
after that.
Steering.
I’m rolling and I steer myself short all of the time
and it’s coming; I can feel it singing and surging to life
in a tide, a god, an angel looking for a sharp sword
in his tongue,
fiery-eyed and furious,
smoking and snake-bitten.
But I can’t be touched by the fire I create –
burning myself won’t work anymore
– there is nothing left to burn but everything else
and it is to be smelted into my sword,
my pen, my tongue, my eyes,
my breath, my words,
my blood, my thoughts.
Wading Through the Cattails
Posted: November 6, 1993 in PoetryTags: Car, Cat, Child, Dark, Dream, Frog, Girl, Gold, Happy, Imagination, lilypad, Love, Memories, Money, Moon, Night, Platinum, Sex, White, Wife
I went to find my childhood
buried in the morass of my memory;
discarded in a moment of adolescence
trying to be an adult
before I knew what that was about.
So me and a shovel and a dream
go wading through the cattails and the frogs,
looking under lilypads and scouring the undersides of logs;
hopes waxing and waning with the flux of a dark moon
laying with my arms behind my head
in a dark room.
There was a little gold-gilded crown
once made of paper. . .
I thought I had drowned my youth
in a premature effort to be a man,
coated with cars, money, girls, sex, and truth,
white picket fences and two and one half kids,
a loving wife and instant happiness.
Ah, but so many can’t and so many others won’t
dig up the countryside grave of their little one,
content to weep and dream with a withered imagination,
or they chase ghosts of happiness in platinum nightdresses
taped to the part of the elephant they can still feel.
What Happens Now?
Posted: September 27, 1993 in PoetryTags: Car, Echo, Flowers, Heart, Love, Night, Orange, Time
when the nighttime
slips across the sky
like a teenage lover
out his window to put flowers
on his first girlfriend’s car,
I’m usually surprised,
even though it was I
who used to climb cautiously
out of my house
and bicycle through quiet orange-lit streets,
picking homeowner’s flowers along the way
to makeshift a heartfelt and beautiful bouquet –
an echo like a car going by
three streets over
in the middle of the night.
Untitled Poem #157
Posted: April 3, 1993 in PoetryTags: Car, Echo, Ghost, Memories, Soul, Spirit, Time, Untitled
a car travelling with my soul
in the passenger’s seat: this is time
and I watch fields of wheat breathe,
amber waves of grain…
an organ plays melancholy from a building
and people pass, they do not hear,
too busy looking down when I have stopped
to listen for the sound of the wind:
echoes and ghostlike spirits of memories.
I cannot explain the music I hear,
be it cacophony or pure, ringing clear,
perhaps the different drum I march to.
Brian Two Two and the Rock of Fang
Posted: April 26, 1992 in PoetryTags: Bear, Bones, Brian, Car, Geoff, Joe, Laura, River, Rock, Sun, Water, Wind, Wood, Yellow
Geoff, Laura, Joe, Brian and I
went to the river to play outdoors
and to sing, sing ho for this, the life of a bear.
warm rocks, chilly water, and a rope
were for flinging ourselves through the air.
the sun and the wind bathed us in yellow hues.
music from the car ran its fingers
through the roadside oaks,
anticipating every curve,
and setting the bones that Brian broke.
wriggling our way over the mountains,
we witnessed a weaver of wood.
I think of my chaos of dogs in the dark:
down fall the trash cans; they saunter and sally
as we race away quick down the waterstained alley.
chiming in with great howls and loud barks.
four-legged and shining, we piss on all cars
snickering about owners asleep in their sheets
their dogs running loose all around in their streets
following the directions of the faraway stars.
I sit by a silent road
Waiting for a car to go by
Racing the split-rail fence
To the lightning horizon.
one car, parked.
in it: no one.
hunched over, coiled,
looking at me;
it grins:
“I could eat you”.
silently shrunken
I drive sunken
watching the vapor
of the new fallen rainwater
dance in the straitjacket of my headlights,
eaten by the grinning grille of my car.
smiling madly from my eye sockets,
I motor evilly with my high beams flickering,
churning my way through the growling fog,
ghost tendrils sucking at my car,
corroding away behind the wheel,
slouched in my chair, spoilt by power steering.
hunting, like the demons riding heat lightning
about my sanity.
wandering the streets at night
is a joy I haven’t had
in a long time for a lack of it.
swimming from streetlight pool
to pool, feeling the cold
of the deep darkness between,
tiptoeing past crouched cars
and predator houses, slinking
down alleys feeling extremely wary,
yet conscious that I own all of them.
I can relate
To many things
Sometimes I’ve sailed
On a seagull’s wings;
Drifting, floating
Over the sea,
Skirting the clouds
So effortlessly.
I’ve once been hung
Up on the wall
As a dartboard
Down the hall.
Once I was a sticker
On the back of a car
And dust and gravel
My surface did mar.
Yet I have survived
Through a lot of emotions
And I’m yet to be drowned
By that uneasy ocean.
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