Poem - we took your yard from you

we took your yard from you
the one you liked to dig in
and tout trucks with loads
back and forth back and forth
from one imaginary work-site
to the other ones

i found out later
the neighbors looked at the marks
on the slats of the fence
where you stood to greet them
as they came and they went
you were gone for good
now on an opposite coast
they said they missed seeing you
missed you every day
since

when i knew this
all the time i hated them
was reformed and i felt
a double great loss for
your beautiful innocence
and my dark stupidity

since then i have resolved
to err on the sunny side of the mind
and we play all the time
in the park


+

For Daniel
2015

Poem: just a poem / can save the world / one line at a time

dreamers all
undependable dreamers
a poet male or female

some worked by gas light and had ink
other with just a pencil by moonlight
some had no paper no pen and no light
they wrote and remembered it
they spoke it in code or
they told the work as they were burned
in jail buried alive
in the madhouse forever
left on the island of poverty
unpardonable all of them

walking down the street
you saw them and hated them
wished them erased
disgusting and unemployable
not of any use

until you fell in love
with someone
or needed a reason to hope
couldn't understand or take it
not even for one more monument

a scrap of verse
who would know
a few trailing lines

just a poem
can save the world
one line at a time


*

Poem: a senseless book / of unrequited love / from victorian times

.. after 'Flights of Fancy, or Imaginary Scraps'
   by Charles Carrick

a tormented book
of unrequited love
from victorian times

i halt at it because
this could be me even now
doing work after work

creating a private world
as broken and limited
as the real world

a reality that can be
a prison of my own creation
inwardly expressed

or outwardly proclaimed
displaying a lack of faith
or a flaw in courage

*

create and have hope
spring from your sadness
or doubts mature into truth

that in turn invalidates more doubt

through rigorous action

*

but how i would enjoy
the attempt to loaf and bluff
say this too shall pass

how i would like
to linger with blots and stamps
late at night flickering flames


behold a sweet moon

and weep my heart out


**

Thanksgiving
Napa, 2015

Poem - The Hunters in the Snow, 1565 - a painting by Pieter Bruegel the Elder

looking at it
was all i wanted

the frozen countryside
on a muted winter afternoon
the color light grey and blue
the rest white

paths between
frozen ponds

black silent trees

and a fire
outside the inn where they
roasted chestnuts

i wonder
about the heft
of the spear and
how cold your feet get

what the
overcoat feels like
and above all

sigh of
a swaying
half-broken inn

sign



*

from
The Hunters in the Snow, 1565
a painting by Pieter Bruegel the Elder

Poem - the invisible library / exists in the sky

the invisible library
exists in the sky
read night or day
in every cloud

morality tale
or parable by the face
of the moon

exaltation mantra
or psalms from
the sun

star koans

blissful endings
in every deep blue
dawn or dusk



**

Poem - but tonight

i saw buddha
in a dream
only his eye fit in the room

he looked over
the top of the wall
and said a few things

naturally i can't
remember what it was
but it was good advice

awake i keep
looking at the section
of ceiling his eye appeared

but tonight
i will dream of a boat
or a fish or a squirrel



***

Poem - A Poem to Tu Fu

he walked down to the river
saw blossoms in the water
wrote it as a conundrum of color
riot hinting at life and death and sex

my river here is a ditch
it looks ugly at low tide
the stuff i see is trash
cars groan down the road

i remember another river
in a wooded valley steep
where nothing bad happened
and i was happy

knowing that the river
in the valley has not changed
or i am here still looking
at a muddy bank i'm grateful

i can go up north to see my river
with any blossoms that fall
or i imagine
signifying everything



**

to
Tu Fu

Poem - Joy is Life Itself

eventually there will be none of you or me left
even a stone or a monument will be swept away to make room

the sentient being who has to do this job will be pissed
of who the fuck put this gross old shit in the way here

so i'd advise you to be sleek clear and clean
and whatever you try to emboss on the world

let it be useful for shade or comfort of some sort
it may stay of it makes a laugh because joy is life itself



***

Poem - my writing is only as good / as my friends

my writing is only as good
as my friends

those who inspired
even through sadness

some of my finest ones
others i can't learn from yet

i hope someday i will
thank you

in the meantime
on goes the day

all hopes too
like magic



*

Poem - even have a smile when / it is getting dark

i remember

there was nothing of the braggart in him
nor was he foolhardy or oblivious to danger
a friend who truly had no fear whatsoever
towards fellow man or at least

he was not compelled to do anything
as a reaction to his fear
he was a keen observer of people
was interested in all the varieties and
how we all felt and thought

he was ugly and his eyes were bright
he had long fingers and he kept his nails long
for playing the guitar he walked as if running
he never stopped smiling a stupid smile
and beautiful women loved him dearly

gorgeous women wanted to be around him
because he was so ugly and smart and he never
took anything from them and he gave them
happiness and made sense from
what they confided in him

selfishly i hardly learned anything
but i did gain a great desire to be fearless
to tell the truth and to listen to beautiful women
because of him i believe in art

still i learned very little from him
but the desire to be with the truth is burned into me
it haunts me i am compelled to be like a bad copy
or bloodless shadow to him who is now gone

he rests

i must carry some of this way on
make life more than just a span of time
to never leave a room in disagreement

walk a city as one yet never alone
even have courage when
it is getting dark



**

For Rubin
Second day after November 2015
Huntington beach

Poem - who choose the / wrong trail again and again (but those who see / do not give up)

in denial i measure time
by how my desires for others arise then fail

a pitiful kind of cosmology
for one who lives in self examination

occasionally i gain consciousness
see how this game is played in my mind

i realize why they say
the best time to pray or act with devotion

is when it is totally hopeless
and such acts seem to matter not

because my ordinary mind
is full of ordinary thoughts

true awareness' view
is anything than ordinary

they speak of beings
whose enlightened gaze even into hell

can recognize and aid
if comprehended or asked

i'm like a million
other wayward fools

who choose the
wrong trail again and again

but those who see
do not give up

they are like light


*


om tare to soha

Poem - it is on the small things we do

it is on the small things we do
or in the ordinary seeming

that happiness is ready
to spring forth and surprise

because the joy in all things
is never far away

delight is the light
behind every star

if you see anything
that is God

*

HB
Oct 2015

Poem - the pond / is frozen

the stone won't sink
or go in the pond
is frozen

last week it could
through just a crackle
of ice

everything is tan
blonde or brown even
the earth

except things
whimsically
highlighted by frost

the sun seems
like an old man or
woman

peeking out a window
you can feel a ray
and then gone


*

Poem - brighter or darker

if you look up
the tree branches are bare
they wave in the sky

against this
the ducks and geese fly
you feel winter coming

bonds between people
home get tighter as
the chill commences

each lived in place
so familiar becomes
brighter or darker



-----

Oak Park
2015

Poem - the street psychic can cleanse your soul

the street psychic can cleanse your soul
for ten bucks or sell you a joint
if you want real help you can call
this number and ask for brittany

how long will you be in new york
and where are you staying not times square
midtown mahattan for you or near
bowling green by the battery

people like you are used and use new york
so who is the victim not him or you
we're like bumper-cars and cony island
and he thrusts his pelvis at your face


*

Poem - and i have gained by you going

i had no idea
of your dishonesty

and when you betrayed me
for another

i waited after you left
for what i do not know

i waited to see
the moon rise with a star

bright in night blue sky
to show me some new things

arising out of darkness
they are brilliant

beyond the sad whiles and plans
of those who are cowards and even me

so as the moon rose
i knew more would come to me

you have taken nothing
and i have gained by you going



***

Poem - i keep reading / i read about language

i keep reading
i read about language

i read about
writing experimentation
in canaan in 2000 BC

i am told M
represents water
drawn from the depths

a S
is a snake or serpent
who endlessly devours
its own tail

how Romans
were slow to
adapt Latin inscriptions

how it could be
corrupted Phoenician
or some other untraceable
Indo-European script


*

my mind travels
through different
alphabets

Coptic

Runes

Greek

Cyrillic

Ethiopian

each with a history
all with a struggle
all attempting
to capture

a loving thought
or a judgement of death

sheep owed
lost n found

lies jokes and
exquisite stories

scratches of lines

lives lost and saved

I did not believe him, I've heard lots of tinfoil hat schemes.

He was convinced that black self-driving trucks trolled the neighborhoods at night, their payload a concealed quantum broadcaster that influenced the thoughts of sleeping people.  In the morning everyone would have an overpowering urge to have a Pepsi -- or report any suspicious activity of their neighbors.

I did not believe him, I've heard lots of tinfoil hat schemes.

But when I lived in Quail Meadow, I had a neighbor woman who was completely out of her mind, she said that the government and local authorities were spying on her through her TV, computer, and light-bulbs -- I didn't believe her for a second.

It turned out the NSA was spying on most people in the United States any way they could.

Being in a surveillance state, a state with secret security laws, subtiley corrupts the mind -- I don't know what to think anymore. The shadow government has no idea either. I decide to start collecting old national geographics. I want to read about the past, have a gauge about what came before, as we shut down our libraries, discard the books, electronic document and history online becomes authoritative, and can be rewritten at any time.

Then I go back in my mind the 1880s and try to live there, before our data profiles could be pinned by a metadata needle to a state like a butterfly to a collection card.



**

October 2018

Poem - i dream you are nearby

i dream you are nearby
and i can save you
it is not too late
i call your phone
i am surprised to hear
it ring in a pile of rags
abandoned or lost
in the shack i am
standing in



*

Poem - but you never forget how it feels

while waiting
on hold

a song says
we get
run down
by dreams

other music
suggests
maybe
some day
you'll know
where
you are
supposed
to be

and to be
ready to
move on

all like
fragments zen
koans
speckled with
hypnosis

filled
with such
longing

malleable
as a play-dough
of desire

or mind
making shadows
light and wall
and silhouettes
simultaneously

but you
never
forget how
it feels