I Threw Him Down

I threw him down, me

as he flew, all angles and arms,
his face opened in wide-mouthed
frown of despair, total lack of
comprehension

there was a pause
all things hung in the balance,
still frame, motion capture,
a Muybridge epic unfolding in turn of young body

in the acute silence between
my final roar
and impact
of his solid head on carpet

between the corruption of rage
subsiding
and regret
taking hold
from pit of stomach

I had the chance to wonder…

how the fuck does this
make
me
a man?

Dust Town

I. 'The Grave'


Sat smoking on concrete walls of recent grave heavy with fruit
of its burden

No headstone or footnote yet someone
mailed a father’s day card
(in a steel lockbox key taped to the lid)

Left photographs of baby smiling on daddy’s knee

Piece of river down quartz smoothed wrinkled watercolor
child’s painting
unsure, unsteady hands placed for blind (and rotting) eyes

It startles me the kinship I share with the dead

speak no more and say so much

Dry body in a dust town

Little to mark the passing of day

Weeds grown golden, sighing oaks, rattle of squirrel
screams of angry blue jays hunting for scraps among
moldering marble plaques

These old California towns amaze me
how they eddy in currents of age while the mechanized
world presses in against them

Old road, old concrete, leaning barns yet no more than
a bare handful of miles away the zoom of a hundred automobiles
scrapping machined rubber against the government subsidized asphalt

somehow these old mining ruins remain untouched

not even to cough up their dead


II. 'Dry River, Dry Town'

heat presses shade
gives no relief
I can’t believe my life has
stretched
so far
so fast

my memories of California rise
in mind as nuggets of ore
washed to the banks
after the toil of the river

(dry river dry town dry
once my life)

I speak only of memory

now I
forget to forge new ones

this really is the backbone
of my development
these dusty stones
chirp-chirp of crickets
hiding in
manzanita

landscape of my dreams even now

thought I returned July to see
the things I knew as a child
but I can’t...

I can’t
whisper away the mind of myself
now grown children
of my own

dead oak lends little shade

can’t wide-eye imagination any longer

no illusions left to my old eyes
nothing left to see


III. 'Rosebud'


The rosebud grows in the fields of El Dorado
The rosebud grows in the fields of El Dorado

Strives up against dry weeds all the same color, gold
yet rosebud is a thing of green
life, eyes

Though it has been three years since I gave it dirt
or took its image into my sore solemn mind
it grows
it grows unbidden

Something for unwashed summer children
to pluck and carry home (weary)
for further investigation

I have looked into the rose
looked into folded soft silk leaves

seen it from all angles on countless starless nights

it is still a rose

Dust and Salvation

I lay here, dust,
bones of dust
Ginsberg's rot, now feeding earth

shining funeral dirt of Eliot
caught between Jesus and the Buddha

It’s the way of things to give in
break down, elemental

entropy, path of sainted lunatics...

mind giving in, soft fruit
hollow bones,
empty, glass of dust
poised on edge of ruin,
tipping…

Is there salvation?

let it come

Chai (for Scottie Robbins)

I would sit with you
again on indurate curb in
front of the tea shop,
where you taught me to drink chai tea,
heavy with cream, topped with cinnamon

I would watch with you,
as the Pacific swallowed laden sun

good Santa Cruz sun,
harboring no illusions among hippies
and literalists, so different from foggy naked prophets
of Telegraph Avenue…

there were no musings
like Beach Street musings,
double-reinforced cups in loose fist,
watching the girls chase
tans among heat mirage of sand

now, there’d be no need to try and score in San Lorenzo park,
behind oleanders, stepping carefully
around drying condoms used hypodermics

Amused, I recall the night
we ran through sea caves
hundreds of feet
arched above rocky cliff
waving flashlights and chasing
silhouettes stalking youthful madness into mottled corners,
alternating between fear of wind and hum and throat of waves

this time, there would be no need
to chase chalky apparitions
of remaining high…

only the mellow imperative liquid musing

of chai … finely constructed dreams

Anger (Fuck Me Too)

Your voice raises
two octaves
twenty decibels,
grown fur, spastic claws, a bend for
destruction

makes it’s flash move for me
diving loop, twisting,
piercing gap between eye and bone
to get at the meat

starts to dig nails in,
ripping into soft rippled tissue…

the part of me
that wants to argue

I bristle
before it’s voracious onslaught
it’s humming breath

while complex flesh, shredded,
falls like ash
to bury my ankles

I feel the collapsed mind go,
a red sheet
across undiscerning eyes
and I let fly

“well, fuck you”

highest thought possible
while disrupted cells, cerebral fluid
leaks through my upper reasoning

“well, fuck me too”

This is not how I wanted
to start virgin day

rather…

we should be wrapped
in muted blankets,
serpentine
devouring each in flush
lazing in armchair bliss
before wide, ice encrusted
sliding glass door
watching snowflakes
chase each other earthward
to melt on
concrete