July 18th, 1944

Godfathered
a venice beach afternoon
with hot sunburned faces
and hot chocolate

an italian restaurant
that uses instant hot
chocolate with loads
of canned whipped cream

your lanky british build
bangs your knees against
the tables' bottom,
those sprinting legs

and now we do what you
do best, which is smile
and have lunch and make
little puns and talk about

your beautiful wife and two
grown sons, about your time
having lunch with the Queen
about Vancouver and Munich

about Mexico, Zurich,
London, Helsinki,
Eugene, Crystal Palace,
about Boston and Darwin

you have a dog and
a doctorate
you have a kindness
that radiating fire built

in a cabin along side
a snow-melt stream
better realer hot chocolate
built in your eyes,

you have the kind of handshake
that Louis Armstrong would sing
about, the kind of heart that
asks to be toured and comes with lunch.


David, photograph those flying skateboarders
for your sons, and send me mental messages
meant to bring your goodness to the masses;
let me learn to leap in your footsteps.

simple fear

a creature stirs
in the black sea's night
tiptoeing atop
those bubbles to the surface

it's not like the happy
narwhal pushing his mythical
tusk above the ice, oh no

this monster waits waist deep
in the murky muddied bottom
lurking in the full-mooned shadows
grinning a jubjub grin

and as I galumph back onto
these black and white keys,
I can see the creature stir

awoken from slimy slumber
for another Black Seaed
night, of thrashing about
bathing my mind in moonlight.

Shower Beer

Oh Ho! Youth!
you butter
dipped un-
cooked wiener
who slides
between my
fingers
and jumps
and jibs
like that
midnight
grunion
run

I slump
and sip
a simple
fermented
foam frothing
for consumption
and I'm
melting off
that rush and
summering out
that cold

I am careless
enough to take
this sweating
sweet
glass bottled
beverage into
the tub, into
the shower
with not a
single dripped
dropped fear
that my beer
will slip
down anywhere
else

I wouldn't
have guessed
recklessness
would take over
my suddzy digits
to ding drip drop
my dranken drink
down - destroying
my ankle with
bevies, bouquets
of beerbrowned
broken glass

Alas, Youth!
you mutant
gecko, you
joking giant
changing
green to gray
throwing seeds
away, down
to the grave,
you stand still
on the bathmats'
shore whilst I
drift hurt,
bloody old
and away.

Denial

Is pushing the thoughts of a newly
found creative spark back into the mind
an emblem of the world back into it's
forget space, is that doing a disservice to our
fellow man?

When we need to create and we don't have
the forum to produce, to bare such virgin fruit,
have we unearthed the sapling meant to carry our
metaphysical seed or instead

have we planted that seed down deeper still
to mutate into the crop of the next season's
bloom?

a pumpkin becomes an artichoke, or a
pilot becomes a two-act play at the Burbank rep

When we place these flying dandelions out into the breeze
and let them spawn up the stream of the subconscious
have we done our jobs as creators
as the reflectors of the almighty
or have we just prolonged the
Death in our wounded Nature,
our post-war psyche,
with a fickle hope of
sweet hereafter?

Fasting

Gloom over sunday
It's 4pm something
and I still haven't eaten
anything today

Gandhi was known
to fast in times of
trouble almost killing
his countries' faith

Well I ain't no
M.Ghandi nor am I
some sparrow picking
pieces from the feeder

I'm tha walking talking
cursing killing
fire-lighting
badbreath breathing

breached bathwater
bastard. the kind
that drives the HOV
lane to get caught

(phone call)

Marlyn, the soft-talking
Indian from Sicily just
called me, she has a sick
sinus stuffyness

it's funny cuz she's
a nurse, the kind
quiet kind that protests
with a smile

all the while, I thought
she might be indecisive
waiting for me to stop and
pop the question

instead she knew I'd come
to my own devices
a wounded knee knelt down
relinquished lesson

stop that shit man
stop it, you ain't fucken
Billy Shakey
spare me your violins cuz

I didn't buy a philharmonic ticket.

Exercise 1: Iambic Pentameter + Caesura!

atop the angels waves the morning flew
like Sunday isn't something we once knew
a dream deferred, a song that's seldom sung
a place a space a nothing known or hung

those cobwebs formed above the spider's brow
no silence in the world that's written now
not hymns not choirs under steeples' chase
the hands of pastor's preach her simple case

now heroes listen closely to this song
and recognize the world is too far gone
to understand a lonesome iambed plea
to shape this mental scape, that fleeting sea.

The Spook

David Briggs
knew when old Shakey
had the spook

when the moon was full
and he could howl
his topanga dream

he could drink and sing
with the best of them then
and ol Briggsy knew it

the kind of spook
that came from Canada
in Hearse named Mort

the kind that came
in a powderfinger bottle
a damage-done drug

and I say when you lose
that spook, you faded
away Shakey. I'm right there.

Aeneid

Daddy, he wrote me letters from the klink
he took half our fortune and now mommy don't sleep a wink
he wrote me seven times a week

when I got my hand on your diary,
I read it in one sittin
when i got that key I made
sure it would fit in
i didn't know when I could
read it up again
so I sat down
and read the entire goddamn thing

when his letters came, I'd smoke a cigarette
an eight year old girl smoking her pretty head
dripping the ash into her pink and white bed

now my college poetry might
try to paint the cliffs at sea
while you were studying
breeding butterflies in Belize
with your head attached to string
who taught you how to think?

i'd stuck them under my pillow,
waiting for the words to burn
little heart-shaped spots
in my case and in my hair
right up into my head
so everyone would know
that daddy still ain't dead.

Storage Unit Auction

So I forgot to pay my month
two months ago and now
my clutter, my 10x25
is up for auction

it might look like
a hunk of junk pushed
packed shoved but
it's been loved the

way quick love
should be made
carelessly and
without much thought

so now
you've got the key
and your sorting out
my year's passed mess

i guess this is what
was meant to be and
this little unit
is no longer just for me

if you find any treasures
please keep me in the loop
because those old stacks
might have some water damage

or some crooked cobwebs
stuck to the front page
but underneath I think
you'll find what your looking for.

slash and burn

a bicycle pedal
an orchid
a choir
an open hand taken
while crossing the street

a latina mother
"dame la mano meja"
those streets
son pelegrosos
but we can be queens

now, I'm sitting atop
a backseat to a 97
camero convertable
holding hands with
a boy/man, a homecoming King

and, for today, I get to
be a princess, I get to
be the homecomeing queen
that my mother said I could be
and my face hurts from smiling

braces, cheer camp, ap history
study group, 5am bus rides,
turning down the cigarette, asb
field hockey captain, bill and
melinda gates scholarship

I drip with gold and
the white gleam of silver
that every redblooded heart
pumping American could ever dream
my mother with her foghorn

on the main street sidelines
jumping like on a exercise trampoline
I did it in one generation
I did it atop the shoulders of my women
this plastic silver crown is theirs.

Beginner's Luck

Upon review, relooking
rereading, and finding the
fruit from the pits planted

i can see that this spring's
crop won't yield the kind
of return we might expect

my orchard may have too much
water or too much manure
covering the roots

maybe too many ranch hands
or investors in this plot
this public plot of land

it can't be from negligence
not from too little care
rewater, reedit - the cuts

made down on the surface
the pruning to grow up
stronger and further

maybe i cut down too deep
and the trees could feel
my sleepless night dwelling

doting on them, pacing
the rows of my subconscious
pleading with these living things

to bare sweeter fruit.

The Hell Do YOU Want

what the hell are
you coming to my door
for at 3am

you think I'm not
counting off zees
or sawing off sheep

well I ain't
cuz you've come round
here again and kept

this tired ol
young man awake
again, sturing

the pink paddle
pushed woodenspoon
down against it

those smooshed curly
tundrals of grey matter
souping up into a rot

"Sleep" calls that
choir of after-school
boys wanting more youth

but, you wait still
not knocking, not singing
just standing with a gaze

the gaze of a stranger
waiting to come inside
to get some shelter and find

peace

Bad Show

arriving with our
instruments in
the cars, we come
for the bad show

we don't know
that show won't
really fly and
that the ten

or so patrons
won't break
an eye from
those shoes

or steins
or the flat tv
with the
olympic skating

a couple in a
clown costume
with sequins
spinning to

a classical diddie
and I beat the skins
of the ol ludwigs
just to get a few

claps and disconcerting
glances, "he probly
shouldn't be playing
that teenage music

anyways."
so the 2 hour drive
and the 6 hour wait
to play for free

for 10 people
who watch tv
so I can dream
this little life away.

Midnight Sun

Oh man, I have to write this.

I have been stuck in a rute for
days on end and I can't get sleep
with this energy between me
and the sheets

let us graps onto the chanches
on the day time and the ever present sun
light and ignore that death that is
the moon, with her loony eyes that
pry on the inside. No

No no, not tonight we've got that
sun cuz son tonight's the night
that midsummer love drone hung high
in the skylined well-light pie

I know that no boundaries will
come around me tonight cuz I've
got all this energy, this unspoken
for desire... this volcano erupting

and I won't crash, no no
not me. not a trained physician
like me; ha! do you think that such
a man wouldn't see the signs of fatigue

no no, you've got it all wrong about me, I will
keep on going with the light sun, with my
wax wings spread free, the sea won't
get near while it shines for eternity.

Allnighter

seeing those zombified
faces at 8am speaks
volumes toward a collective
image of "I didn't get
any sleep"

was it the library until
two and then the study room
and then waiting until
the keyholder arrived at the
marina del rey starbucks

or the greek week rush
pledge induction drunken
paddled prancing pushing
punching puking passed out
percoset passion-fruit pong?

No, no. it was a death in the
family. a poet's rambling
a sweaty sheeted two am
sung midnight sun
a conscious mind keeping the imagination

at bay.

irresponsible (nighttime country plea)

I'm not looking at
you like I used to

I used to cock my
head to the side

and glare with one
eye squinting the left

like the light was twice
too strong for me

truth is it ain't my
eyes but a cricked

bedwarndown neck
that sure as heck

ain't what it was
cuz two eyes ain't ferme.

Fineline

a tightrope walk exists for
man () that kind that looks like a
game played on the ocean shore

the kind of line in the sand
that was drawn with a stick
like butter in a pan

we are either on it, man
or we ain't and
I've been thinking that

the ocean took away my line
because the kind of hand
that I hold when I pray

isn't the kind of man's hand
I wanna hold
it's soft, cold

what I'm tryin to say is
that I've had to apologize too many
times for my behavior

when people start treating you
like a real asshole, like your
friends and your mother

then you might just be one
and the you-me that we are talking about
isn't even near the shore, but out in the

bath tub with a stick
in his hand, scratching the white bottom
making up a pile of sand to draw like butter.

Instant Poetry

A sticky note
stuck to the bookshelf
unstuck sticky leafs
falls
wailing a airconditioned wind

"you cannot be a reasonable
libertarian...There's no
way"

the cublicale poster peels
"Views of Paris"
with a filtered fog and
a tour ship down the Seine
morning Eiffel towerdust

the people deleted from the
bridges - winter whited out
and a glass greenhouse

"Barack Obama references...
that's what he does say
in our reading for today"
"I know that he like..."
That's interesting, I don't really

wanna talk about. super boring.
what is your
I've read a post-humus introduction

because like right now
his lecture is like
I've been interested in his class
it's gonna be like really interesting
San Diego is just Arizona. Barack Obama

If I only had thirty days

If I only had 30 days to live,
I wouldn't buy a gun or start
doing needle based drugs

I would cash in everything
I could - I would sell my
les paul guitar and my books

and take that money and
pack it into shoe-boxes
to drop it, to bomb it from

a hot air balloon
so high up you couldn't
see my face or hear my

laughter when it falls
"this isn't going to make
you happy at all!" I would cry

And then I would realize I
only heard those words
they were meant for me

in that reflective moment, I will leap
from the wickered basket balloon ship
and try to grab at all the money

on my way down (hush)
like a game show contestant
in a glass wind elevator box

stuffing gobs of green bills
into his brief, so that he can buy
a new something, a new life.

stuff

ruthlessly tossing her denim
into plastic trash-bags and
rubberbanding the open ends
then tossing those pudgy bags
into the trunk

"kathunk" she closed
those dusty clothes
tight down into the
back and set forward
up into the hills

her fingernails felt
funny flicking the
rubber on the wheel,
well I guess that's
plastic made to feel

like rubber, but nothing
like the plastic around
that denim, not like paper
plastic, just more real
and her fingernails peeled

with a pick -
uncrossed eyes up at the
center divide and it
feels like a ghost
sits to my right

we ride along the ridge
side two-laned trailway
unlight caravaned roads
national park type roads
with green signs wynding

aisle and alleys of pines
miles of gullys and lines
placed painted particular
lines
the ghost has no eyes

no eyes, no eyes
and we fly a mile
high and hours of
time and years have
gone by

the way side
the canyon the alley
of time like a river
that babbles pushes
past ryhme

no reason or season
to find in the sky
not a hope not a life
only road and it's mine
like the denim and the

ghost with no color
in his prime he
sang ballads and
and troubadoured
from wheat to

the rhy and I,
I knew he was waiting
to lay right beside
his maker, his keeper
his holy on high

brakes.
down shift. parking
garage. nighttime
ice outside and
a lonely hot motor. stops.

I only have a few minutes

I only have a few minutes
to shave in the office
restroom, my razer tucked
away in my book bag

I only have a few minutes
before my poetry class starts
and I will have a peachy baby
face, and a lesson plan about plath

I only have a few minutes and
in those minutes, I reviewed,
I took at cursory glance at,
I just gazed upon my poetry and

I only have a few minutes but
they shattered my ego, those
words that are so sloppily strung
broke me into a know-nothing, a loser.

now, go. go teach poetry.

Trading Fidgeting in for Grace or My Envy of Peter Gabriel

"Gluey Feather's on a Flume
The Sky is warm and she's the
moon." Piano keys tink a simple
outdoor night
the kind of key strokes
that make more stars appear

stars like plastic jewel
diamonds slung across the
mahogany table

stars like paper white
pukas strung across the
neck, her neck

maybe I can flip my finger
faster, the piano player says,
maybe a little bit harder and
louder
then I can take a day off to
settle my skeleton bones

to collect my chicken white
bones flung in heaps atop
that table

to collect my imagination's
body running leaps over
that candlestick

over those light-lite suns
hung billions of miles from
home, alone. more elemental
than a juniper and much more
careless than these minor chords
these minor works I put you through.