untitled 404

this brain's equipped

with salt and vinegar

flavored memory chips.

where the hammer

pounds that fickle tyrant:

unconscious mind.

i'd rather be where 

fact slips into fiction

or doubles back,

a bus ride to paradise

with a lifetime carried

in a paper bag.

flying with the snails,

casting daisies to the devil.

tracing the dimples

of venus with my tongue

before the last black sand

trickles through the glass.

come with me,

with drums and butterflies.

take off your pants.

we'll chalk mandalas

on the ceiling, and

fantasies on the floor.

naked as a buckeye

draped with monarchs

a fluttering of black on orange.

or shall we be like crickets

singing to the frogs

who wait patiently to eat them.

recipes for dreams and blood streams

Because

it was all Daniel

in the lion's den,

and miniature loaves

of Wonder Bread. Black

widow spiders in the vines.

and I didn't have a broom

to ride to see the Wizard of Oz

so I'd have to walk.

Past indian chief

hood ornaments

and Coca Cola bottling plants

with a window onto Main Street.

Unaware of the avocado rugs

and burnt tangerine refrigerators

and Farrah Fawcett hair

and nine Middle Eastern wars

I had to look forward to.

Because my soul

was destined to be

a California river,

in flood or dribble

and extermination standoffs

and sweet nights in the desert

or under sun-striped

redwood shadows

on June fuck afternoons.

Meanwhile, the blood code

passed me by, these molecules

of my body arranged like this

for a very temporary while.

Like a thirty minute sunrise

before the spectrum

shrinks from the sublime

indescribable hues

to the daily monotony of blue.

With an appointment

at the crematorium or the graveyard.

(date to be determined.)

I dreamt of elk.

and smelt their fur

and felt their rut

before the bleating

of the clock erased

the meadow and the street.

Ah, the orbit and the axis

shared with prostitutes

and plankton,

what could be more sweet?

Soon enough to be forgotten

like a candy wrapper in the street.

remainders, reminders, and epitaphs

shoes and luggage, brands

bags of cans that bend a man's back

marquees flyers graffiti:

i'm this, i'm this, i'm this

a vegetable?

a bicycle?

a party or a capricorn?

what movies do you like?

i see..........

i can't concentrate

it seems that

............i'll explode

and leave behind

some bloody

scraps:

news

and overheard conversations

billboards,

xeroxed ramblings taped to street poles

airports

couples

failures

daily wonders

cold snaps

you?

mobile homes and phones

a shattered boombox

patched with bandaids,

and a keyboard missing

the escape key,

are crammed against the wire

of a stolen shopping cart.

the skeleton

of a baby stroller,

a deflated red balloon

hanging from a string,

eight crayons

in a marlboro box:

three reds two blacks

two blues and a gray.

the guy with haunted eyes

and nice shoes

crouches beside the cart

mumbling insanities

into a dead cell phone.

-captain. captain.

i told you.

there was a face on it.

the wall, the wall,

the wall of jericho.

she had a trumpet,

the virgin queen.

the bride behind

the veil. i told you.

it was a trumpet,

a long stemmed lily,

and the face on the wall

was red black and blue.

i saw it. so did you.

now it's here in the alley.

he strokes a spotted puppy

who wiggles and shakes

which jingles a set of

army dog tags on his collar.

holds the phone

in front of the pup

and says, tell him boy,

tell him. the dog barks.

a voice on the speaker:

john, are you there?

where are you son?

where are you?

the phone wasn't dead

after all.

busker

stravinsky on a banjo

in the subway.

mancini. metallica.

no one pays attention.

the dudes in jeans

or power ties and suits

toss quarters

with a smirk.

teasing chopin with

a joplin rag to no effect

louie louie mashed

with louie armstrong,

the earbud heads trudge

towards the escalators

wrapped up in their

personal cocoons.

except for she, who

hangs back against

the white tiled

station walls

feeling every strum

and string that's plucked.

gravel watching

edward crouches between a honda

and a mazda on amazon street

picking through pea-sized pieces

of gravel, examining each for color

and crystal structure with a twenty power

bausch & lomb hand magnifying lens.

maria, who lives across the street,

comes up behind him and says

what are you doing, dude? looking

for diamonds or magic rings? frodo ain't here.

edward flips his long gray ponytail

over his shoulder and turns his head.

no, these are better than that,

these are pieces of history.

really? just looks like gravel to me.

no diamonds or rubies or emeralds, right?

exactly. it is gravel. gravel with a story.

want to hear it? here, take a closer look.

edward slips a couple of pebbles

onto his tongue and then drops them

into the palm of his hand, holds it out

towards maria. she leans closer. cautiously.

see how the color jumps out now?

red and yellow and blue? and sparkles.

that's gross, you put them in your mouth.

she makes the finger-stuck-mouth-gag gesture.

edward laughs, holds the lens over the stones.

i know, probably shouldn't but it brings

out the color. here, look at them with

the magnifier, tell me what you see.

maria takes the lens and peers at the pebbles

in edward's outstretched hand.

ok, they're pretty i guess, but so what?

what's so special about them? are they precious?

nope. not at all, they're just chert. however......

they do have a story. one that goes back

over a hundred years ago. the old jail

was just down the street and there was

a quarry just up there. the prisoners

were sent up with sledge hammers

and picks to break up the chert on this hill.

then it was sprayed with tar to pave the street.

ok. but why do you care? it's just a bunch of old rocks.

not even worth anything and look, the colors

are already gone, they only looked nice

with your spit on 'em, now they just look like shit.

well. i suppose you could look at it that way,

to me they are a reminder of what was once here,

when the city was young. and going to jail

was no joke. not that it ever is, but back then

it was worse. working all day breaking rocks,

not as funny as old silent movies for sure.

oh i've seen those, with the men in those

striped suits like a zebra, running all funny

and jerky. was it like that? right here?

now they have those orange overalls 

and pick uptrash by the freeway. my cousin had

to do that. he got drunk and crashed his camaro.

right down there, see that laundromat?

he went right over the sidewalk through

the front window. some old lady was there.

she didn't get hit, but her laundry basket

flew into his car, and he passed out

under a pile of sheets. when the cops

got there they thought maybe he was dead

and that someone had covered him up.

that would make a funny scene in a movie,

don't you think? more than your jail house rocks.

at the rancho ninety nine motel

there was a warning

written on a paperplate:

beware! rattlesnake seen

on frontage road sixty eight.

it was underneath

the cracked naugahyde

seat cushions of a couch

left on the curb outside

the rancho ninety-nine motel.

the big snake was coiled up

on the dimes and nickels

left behind by sam,

the regional sales rep

for mega-bio-petro-

pharma-globa-ceuticals, inc.

the coins fell out of his pockets

while he was sleeping off

his greasy evening freaking

with tammi, a local gun dealer's 

meth-addicted wife, who

traded tricks for drugs

as soon as he was

snoozing and snoring,

tammi snickered

-so long sam, you slug,

and smothered him

with a motel towel

drenched in the ether

she had scored the night before

and stole his black corvette.

they didn't find him for a week.

couldn't erase the reek,

even with a quart of

mega-bio-petro-pharma-

globa-ceuticals-all-purpose

deodorizer/moisturizer/

babyformula/artificial sweetener.

so the couch was hauled out

to the curb. where it attracted

a family of mice. quite a snack,

for a big fat western diamondback.

the six-foot rattler bit

the county health inspector

when he stopped by the motel

to pick up his monthly bite.

not exactly the kind

he had in mind.

so mister grayson grayman,

rancho ninety-nine motel manager,

quickly penned a sign on a paper plate

from the breakfast lounge

and frisbeed it onto the couch.

the rattlesnake was gone by then,

had slithered up the street

to digest the dozen mice he'd eaten

and found a cozy spot under the seat

of a black corvette previously owned

by a certain regional sales rep,

recently deceased.

bombs and waffles

i saw the bomb

go down the chimney

like santa claus.

clicked on that

and watched a cat

playing a piano.

the bay is stuffed

with herring,

gulls and scaups

feasting on roe,

and the sky is stuffed

with empty blue.

a robot crawls

across the waxing

gibbous eye above,

sending postcard

views: hi, how are ya,

wishing you were here?

no. i wish i was

in bangkok.

smelling belgian

waffles grilling

at the victory monument

skytrain station.

the lawn

the unmowed lawn

has stories to tell:

the whispered ones

the neighbors like to savor

with a glass of ice tea

or a budweiser.

sitting on patio furniture

in the back yard

brushing gnats

off clammy arms.

dogs barking down the alley,

a single engine plane

moans towards the sunset.

the eight-year old twins

across the street

are shrieking about

who took what,

what's not fair,

who is going

to tell on whom.

nestled in the

eight inch lawn,

a limp blue and white

football.

a spiderman t-shirt, size small,

a picnic plate with

a smear of dried velveeta

that the ants are determined

to ignore.

page two of a visa bill

two months past due.

black panties trimmed in lace

with a dandelion

sprouting through the waist.

a wedding ring

that a sharp-eyed magpie

spots and snatches

to adorn his nest.

even though she knew

clay heart,

cardboard face.

coat hanger bones

and chewing gum sinews.

cerulean persona.

as posted.

slippery encounters

in the twenty-third floor

broom closet

memorialized

with stains.

she knew 

he was a liar.

the stacks

I'm in the stacks saving books

and magazines headed for the shredder:

A short history of Lollapalooza County

Butterflies of Argentina,

Radio Play Digest of 1939.

I keep them in six self-storage units,

shelves and boxes, floor to ceiling.

All the yellowed words and pages

even Google has abandoned.

On Saturdays I hit the stalls and canopies

at all the region's flea markets and yard sales,

scrounging Look, Life, and Fortune magazines.

instruction manuals for obsolete appliances,

service station road maps, faded travel brochures.

My scanner is a time machine.

for rendering the ephemera:

the orphaned playbills,

going out of business coupons,

twenty-five cent detective story grit.

..............and so........

At three a.m. in August '53,

I'm on the Santa Fe Southwest Chief

passing through Topeka on my way to LA

to catch a liner bound for Bora Bora.

Wearing the straw fedora I found in the margin

of page 98 in the May '52 issue of Argosy.

With Lana Turner cuddled against my shoulder.

She's sleepy from all the oysters and champagne we swilled

down in the diner. and she's oh-so-grateful

since I rescued her from the Russian saboteur

who had tied her to the bed in that flop house in Chicago.

She whispers some intriguing possibilities in my ear

and we got a lot of miles before we roll into Union Station.

Lights are flashing red at some lonely crossing,

and then......

the scanner's whine awakens me,

and I send the file of Argosy page 98, May 1952

to the server in the closet.

It's 3:47 and time to grab a couple hours of shut eye

before it's time to head back to the stacks
in the basement of the library.

No wait, it's Saturday!

Got a few more hours to sleep and then, the flea market.

where I hope to see, Lana, that semi wilted flower child

from the sixties who has that booth with old copies

of Life and Look and Fortune, and brochures

for South Pacific cruises.

She winked at me last week, perhaps she'd like to share a drink,

take a trip in my time machine and explore the possibilities.