Poem - over the boats

gone all month
but i'm good i suppose

my arms surround
a perfect circle of empty air

the light is lifting strong
off reflections from the waves

back bay newport beach
this is where the bluffs rise up

this is where my heart rises too
sun giving a new day

over the boats

Poem - risk

marine killed by an explosion
a youth who became a man

risk

concerned neighbors sent extra milk over
and a patriotic flag



when he came back
he's anywhere but here

Poem - on the train home/ we laughed

in love i see you and i don't know who you are
i know that i will never know you totally
but why be insistent -- has anyone been able to have anything
in such persistent questioning

we danced under the moon at buckingham fountain
and the lights changed color
as music played

"I got rhythm, I got music, I got my girl
Who could ask for anything more?"

on the train home
we laughed

Poem - a figure who is already there &/ watching you enter the door

you are dragging me into the room
by my hand, please stop

my arm was rigid and crooked
but i let you lead me, it is comical

people see this as a salute, or as a
declaration, for you this is help

my hand is not there it never was
i am someone different

a figure who is already there &
watching you enter the door

Poem - always coming/ always going

each moment
is like a wave

coming in
going back out

dragging us
or pushing

it lulls us to sleep
then to be awake

always coming
always going

----

River Forest
8/14

Meeting God in New York

Before I woke up this morning, I had a dream I was standing on a sidewalk in New York. I was near Chinatown, in Lower Manhattan. Grime & gum on the sidewalk, the old brick buildings stood, the stray bits of trash. For some reason, this hip guy was walking towards me -- when I saw the figure, I knew I was waiting for him.

It was God, coming into my life again, and this time he was disguised as a young, streetwise punk. When he got close enough, he had a tough friendly New York grin on his face. The kind of smile I'd seen all over New York. So I wasn't afraid when he was close enough to talk to me.

I woke up. It was dark and 5.30 in the morning.

Poem - they always meant well/ didn't they the grown-ups

i decided as a child
there was something to find

had to be something
because adults were crazy

they always meant well
the grown-ups

i had no idea mature
was to be a big dumb old kid

Poem - the horror/ of efficiency

i'm killing
ants with
bait

so last night
i dreamed of
thick lines of
ants going
from the
door

thousands and
thousands of
them all hungry
to their
deaths

the horror
of efficiency

who was the
genius who
cooked this
stuff up in
a lab

they're great
at what they
do these bugs
don't have
a chance

Poem - &

he was hooray for you
hooray for me
hooray for this
hooray for jesus christ
all together in this bar
all together with more drink
and he wouldn't stop
until he was seriously
hooray hooray hooray
down off the barstool
to the floor to the bouncer
to the curb / cop

&

when they stuffed him
in the back of the
squadcar he convulsed
like a fish i could hear
him screaming "You're
all a bunch of F--ing
worthless pukes."

the baseball
game came back on
and i watched his
abandoned last drink
sweat

Poem - he looked

he looked the way a drunk looked
he took pride in this denial

he thought he was like a sordid champ
even like a writer about to do the best work

he brought paper and pen but he did the crossword puzzles
to not think about anything

left every night by 11 the same way
in & out through the side entrance or back door

it is a bad dream for a dreamer who thinks
they still dream

Poem - One Typical Night Awhile Ago

bad men looking for
beautiful women
looking for bad men

i keep my eye on
the clock and the
clock doesn't give
a goddamn because
it is a clock

dwelling in the clasp
of imagined or real
missed opportunities
rolling along like
one drink after another

i have a smoke
i see the fingernail moon
i don't want to go
back in but i do
there is nothing else
to do when you
are at this

-------

Poor Phil's
Oak Park

Poem - i love you

i love you
but the love does not come from you

i see it is
the love in me to care for you or for anyone

so i can't lose it
like you can't lose your own love inside

and if you love me
with this in mind we'll be loving true

never believe
i can take it away from you by going

Chicago

I was interested to discover there are several places named Chicago in North America -- Chicago being a derivation of the Native American construct ''Chi-cau-qhu', which was a widespread catch- all for a kind of flowering wild onion, or herb. One of my favorites I visited recently is Chicago, NV. It was founded in 1877 by Emiline Roquefort, who established the famous silver mine "Delight" in 1876. Regrettably, in 1879 Mr. Roquefort shot himself with a pistol during an altercation with Bart Blanchette, who was a native of Chicago, IL. Another Chicago is located in the State of Maine, by Bett Crossing. Civil War buffs will probably remember the battle there, fought by Union General C. Marshall Skilling at Patch River Bend. In Chicago, in Maine, vistors can get a good view over the Patch River if they choose to climb to the heights along Telegraph Street. From the downtown and a numbr of quaintly restored shops & historic buildings, you can see the steeples of Benchley Church, in the village of Sorrow.

Lady of Oak Park

Every day during the summertime, I recognize a lady who goes to Scofeild Park at about 1 o'clock in the afternoon. Under the trees, she plays checkers by herself near the war monument. The war monument is under renovation, but it does not seem to bother her. If you see her, the woman does not look unhappy in the least -- she won't talk to you, she's not there. I think she's in 1958 with a boyfriend, who moved to Canada just before Autumn. When October rolls around she waits in the lobby of the Oak Park Arms retirement home, for a letter that will never come. Tomorrow will be another day.

An Author, a Book, and a Librarian at the Library in the Morning

i.

It is a beautiful summer's morning in Oak Park. I put on a nice soft plaid shirt and grab a copy of my smallest, thinnest book. You have to start somewhere.

"Hello." I say, at the library.

"Hello!" says the librarian.

"I am an author." I say.

"Cool!" says the librarian.

"I live here, and this is our community library. It is a very nice library!"

"Thank you." says the librarian.

"Look what I have here! I'd like to give the library a copy of my latest book. It was written in Oak Park, and it is about Oak Park."

"Oh." says the librarian. "We don't accept book submissions to the library."

Being ready for this, I say, "Well, it is a library, isn't it?"

"Yes." laughs the librarian seeing the irony. "But still, we don't usually accept book submissions to the library." The librarian thinks. "But there have been exceptions."

"Who would know about those exceptions?"

"Administration, on the second floor."

"Thanks so much. It was nice talking to you."

"You're welcome!"

I talk to the nice people in Administration, and then, in a cafe, I give my book away to a pretty girl. This was the beginning of my Library, which I guess is not a library at all -- where books are accepted, where people don't know they are a branch of my Library, and if they give my book away to anyone else, it makes a new branch.

Or, out of my confused thinking, I remember one of my heroes, Richard Brautigan, used to hand his poetry out on the street, the work attached to little packets of seeds. I have no idea what I'll do.

ii.

When I get home, I decide tomorrow I'll go to the Oak Park Historical Society & hide one of my books in the bathroom.

It Starts to Rain

i.

Once dreaming about a book I was reading, now working where my old office used to be in the side basement room. The house is empty, save me and what I need to pack. I cannot quite capture the dream. A friend and I go to a thrift store called Brown Elephant, I need a tie for a meeting tonight. In the dream last night I was in a meeting. I pick a tie out and an old National Geographic for $3.50, but I can't go to the meeting because of a deadline. The dream is completely gone now.

The sky darkens, wind blows, rain scheduled never comes.

ii.

If I had time, ideally I'd go to Scofield Park and look at the trees and see if they reminded me of anything about my dreams. There is a deadline as real as a dream to be done. The deadline changes like a dream. The dream and the deadline are the same. Looking around, I think I am more awake when I am asleep. If I dream tonight of going to a meeting after getting a tie and an old National Geographic magazine from Brown Elephant, that would be fine. Or the dream meeting in the dream would be interrupted by a dream dream deadline that changes in the dream like a dream.

It starts to rain.

Joe and Pianos

Joe lived alone in the house his mother and father had bought in Oak Park, IL. Joe was 52 and had never been able to make many friends.

For many years, Joe was an aspiring writer of gags. Usually he wrote every day after having a glass of milk at the cafe. Often it was about pianos. Joe wrote:

Goes to show you, some musical instruments can go bad and get you when you least expect it. Today, a piano attacked without warning from the back of a piano moving truck at Harlem and Home Avenues, about 40 miles per hour. There was just a split second for a driver to hesitate a bit on the accelerator, but that was it. The piano hit the pavement with the flash and crash that sounded like the start of an epic Wagner concerto & the mayhem commenced. Ivory keys exploded, strings and sharp pieces of shaped wooden piano guts fighting with the cars as they ran over the thing. Renegade stand up piano took out 4 cars and a motorcyclist in 30 seconds flat. Not a few people in Oak Park will go home tonight and look at, say, a harpsichord and wonder when a seemingly innocent objects will SNAP.

He sat there for a few minutes, looking at what he wrote, tapping the pen to his teeth. Joe tried reworkng the writing, because he couldn't figure out why it was funny.

He fed the squirrels. He came back inside. The great piano attack story wasn't funny. It wasn't even true.

At about 11 PM, Joe tucked himself in.

He had a dream about naked ladies playing pianos. He blushed. He had no paper handy in his dream to write about the ladies playing the pianos.

To the Other Shore

You are on the shore of a river. The sun is out, and there is not a cloud in the sky. Where others should be, in the brightness, they are not, it is just you & I. You are wearing clothes as if to go boating -- white slacks and a white loose shirt. You look dapper and at ease. At first I do not recognize you and I hesitate to intrude, to go back into the shade of the trees. But easily you look up, and you say "Hello, I remember you, how have you been?" Just fine, I say back. We look at the water, hardly you can look at the sun on it. But there is a gladness to it, a fierce happiness in the glare. Understand he and I were somehow inside, and outside the light & we both comprehended this without necessary comment. How do you feel? I asked. "I'm fine, better than ever. Be careful what you tell, I don't want you to give the wrong idea about how good and easy it was. I think I'll be pushing off to the other shore, it looks good there." Image passed before my eyes, stronger, yet dimmed. A paddle dipped down, then two in a stroke while the oarlocks sweetly creaked.

July 12
2010

Lines

i.

In looking
at others and
imagining anything
you are stealing
from them --

do not do this.
It is stealing.

ii.

There is no
jealousy in
true spirituality.

iii.

If there is
division, then
it is the product
of one's own
deluded mind,
which is the self.

Poem - come/ with me

come
with me

don't face
empty rooms

the apartment
is packed

look

sun will keep
coming through

day and day it will
touch the floor

right there
in that spot

so lovely

you had to move
to see this

-----

Lombard Street
Oak Park