Last day of the year

I saw Trust, Hope, Love, Faith,

carefully inked on a wall

in flowery cursive script,

and a pair of discarded boxer shorts

adorned with billiard balls beside

an empty bottle of Skyy vodka,

a cheap conference table top 

jig-sawed in half sprawled on the corner,

a dry leaf spinning furiously in a doorway.

Come Thursday evening

will the brokers be tossing

pixels out the window?

'tis the season

he or she

asleep beneath

a soggy sixty inch

flat screen television box.

a corner of some synthetic

magenta coverlet puddles

over his or her bare feet.

one pale toe peeks out

from the edge.

the moon set gleams

between the red-eyed horns

of Sutro tower.

down the block

the south-of-market wild man screams,

merry christmas, merry christmas

at the bustling passersby

who studiously avoid his eye.

i slipped a ten

to the girl with the lip stud

and the fading shiner

sitting outside the walgreens

with a puppy nestled in her coat.

shock, surprise,

broke across her stony face,

neither of us spoke.

when the signal changed

from the red man to the green,

i looked back to where she sat.

she gave me a private smile

and shyly waved good bye.

Thanksgiving

The frost was on the thistles

when the whistle of the freight train blew

as it rattled across the access road.

I wasn't sleeping deeply anyway

but I resisted climbing out of my bag

at least until the watery light of dawn.

The frigidaire deep freezer I'd

converted to a shelter did a halfway job

of insulating me from the November chill,

although with the door removed

it wasn't perfect. I’d built a small fire

the night before with some scraps of pallets

and somebody's discarded chair.

It had three coats of paint and childish

initials scratched through the white top coat

through it's earlier skin of green to

the bottom coat of red. It burned okay

once I got it started. The embers

finally ebbed a couple hours before sunrise

but I’d been warm enough before that.

I poked through the ashes with the spine

of a broken umbrella. A lucky day, a few coals

remained and I put the last pieces of the pallet

and the front section of last week's Wall Street Journal

on the coals and revived a nice small blaze.

The black feral kitten with white paws and chest

poked her head out of the sleeping bag and yawned.

She'd decided that it was a better place to sleep

snuggled up against my chest than under

some piece of cardboard or on the abandoned couch

I’d  wrestled down here under the railroad bridge.

It was light enough now to get up and check my snares.

See if any of the wild turkeys had been unwise enough

to scratch through the remains of my squash and tomato plants.

There was nothing left now on the cusp of winter

but a few withered fruits but they still picked out the seeds.

It really was turning out to be a lucky day

-for me. A big hen was caught by her foot

in a loop of plastic twine i'd set the night before.

Kitty, we are gonna feast today!

The turkey tried to fly up when I approached,

but I grabbed her and quickly broke her neck.

Plucking was going to take awhile but my stomach

was already anticipating the succulent meal

we soon would share. The kitten toyed with the feathers

as I pulled them loose. The scent of the sugar refinery

a couple miles up the tracks drifted in on the morning breeze.

It's a sickening smell when it lingers relentlessly

but I guess i must be used to it. At least enough

to stay in this place. I heard a car gun it's engine

down where the county road ends at the tracks.

Joanie was stumbling out the door of a some SUV.

She had on her dirty white ski coat and a one and a half liter

bottle of cheap vodka dangled from her hand.

The van roared off and some local boys yelled

something out the window, and laughed as they sped away.

She gave a limp back-handed wave without turning around.

Joanie hangs out in front of the liquor store

and waits for kids too young to buy. Offers to

score for them in exchange for a bottle for herself

and whatever they want to do with her.

She's only been on the skids for a year or so

and hasn't completely lost her looks.

Not enough to discourage teenage boys, anyway.

I think she's shy of forty by a few years but she's

gonna look like sixty soon the way she's going.

She lurches into my camp and sits down on a crate

by the fire. Takes a swig from what's left in the bottle.

Want a hit? she says. No, thanks anyway.

There was a time when I’d have happily accepted,

but hard as it was getting down to this point,

it's a lot harder climbing out. Six a.m. cocktails

don't make it any easier. She closes one eye

and squints at the half-plucked turkey.

What you got there she says, izzat a turkey?

Yeah. Caught it in one my snares. We'll be eating

good today. Stick around and join us.

That sounds good, I think I’ll do that she says.

But first I need to crash out for a while.

I tell her, no problem, it'll be awhile to get this

plucked and cooked, go ahead and take a nap.

Take a while to get it fucked? you don't have to settle for that,

I'll do you. She laughs so hard she nearly falls off the crate,

catches herself, and wipes the tears out of her eyes.

Yeah joanie, that's a good one. Why don't you get

some sleep. I put your sleeping bag under that tarp

over there last night to keep it dry.

I’ll wake you up when it's time to eat.

Thanks, dude, you're a sweetheart, ya know?

you're a real… a real…. you know what i mean?

Sure joanie. you too. go on. go take a nap.

She gets up off the crate and yanks the tarp off

of her sleeping bag. Sits down heavily on it,

struggles with the zipper of her jeans

and squirms them down to her knees.

Sure you don't want a quick one?

You're so sweet to me, I wanna show you

some 'preciation. She flops back and gets her

pants down to her ankles then passes out.

I go over and take her jeans off, put her legs together

and get her zipped into her bag. She's already snoring.

Sweet dreams, joanie, I whisper, sweet dreams.

The black kitten with white chest and feet

bounces over to her and worms her way down

into the sleeping bag. Joanies moans softly.

Looks like a lucky day for all of us. It's cold

but at least it ain't raining. We got a turkey

and someone soft to snuggle with.

Automatic

Full auto feels like god almighty;

nothing satisfies fanatics

as much as ripping off

a thirty shot load 

on full automatic.

Rounds spitting out the barrel,

hot brass ejecting out the side,

the stink of cordite gasses

more enticing than the spicy scent

of virgin asses.

The rapid recoil of the rifle butt,

a staccato slapping faster

than a rabbit fucks.

And when the magazine is spent,

the would be warrior is impotent,

he masks himself in verses

defiled into vile curses.

A false allegiance to flag and word,

his true credo, a fervent hate,

his climax, a weapon's ejaculate.

His seed spewed on the world

to propagate more generations

who find their ecstasy behind a trigger.

Bar Talk, Opus 65

Sindbad's sits on a pier and is soon to be evicted.

The Port of San francisco wants the space for ferry service.

I went in and took a corner stool with a view out the wide windows

of the Bay and Yerba Buena Island and the swooping arcs of the bridge.

It's the last week of their tenancy and I had some time to kill after work.

One of the regular's sat on the stool right up against the window.

Hey Mike, he says to the bartender, time for Plan B, Plan Budweiser.

His pal on the stool next him say's that's a good one, Plan Budweiser.

The first guy says you should of been here yesterday,

Mike was on fire. I came in yesterday morning

after a big night- you don't want to know.....
and I ask him for a menu.

and Mike says, you don't need a menu,
you need some Eggs Benny. So I go, Ok, gimme some Eggs Benny.

That Mike, he was on fire.

Yeah.

So I'm waiting for my eggs Benny
and this couple comes in off the ferry and sits right over there.

and the guy was a real douche, so I say,

You're bothering me.

But he keeps going on.

So I ask them where they came from,

and he says they came in on the Vallejo ferry.

A couple of real Val-lay Joes, huh?

Yeah. So he keeps on shooting off his mouth
and I tell him again he's bugging me and he acts like he wants

to get into something so I tell him he really doesn't want me

to have to handle him. You know?

Right.

And Mike tells the guy that I'm a trained martial arts master

but the guy won't give it up. But his girlfriend is telling him

to shut the fuck up. But he keeps running his yap.

Then he puts his hand on my arm and I take it off like this

and tell him again that he really doesn't want me to handle him.

And his girlfriend keeps telling him to shut the fuck up.

So then he tells Mike he wants a Coors with a Jack poured on top of it.

And Mike gives it to him and he chugs a bit.

And starts running his mouth again.

So his girlfriend reaches over and slides his glass

way over here where he can't reach it. And Mike goes,

Looks like you been cut off.

I'm telling you, Mike was on fire.

Just as the guy was finishing up his story, a well dressed lady

well past a certain age sat down on a stool and Mike brought her

a Vodka Cran without her even asking.

He says how you doing hon, and she says fine, Mike.
asks him what he's gonna do when Sinbad's closes in a week.

He says he's gonna get surgery for his bunions,

been working on his feet for forty years and it's tough

when you got bunions. Hard to find shoes that don't hurt.

She says yeah, she had them too, which toe is his on?

Big toe. Same as hers. She had the surgery three years ago,

and the doctor told her that if she did exactly

what he told her to do for a year, he promised that she'd be fine.

And she did. Says she can do all the things she likes to do again,

like dancing.

Mike says so you had to take it easy for a year? stay off your feet?

Yeah she says, fortunately there's things I like to do that don't require

being on my feet.

Mike says yeah I guess, but it's nice to have the option

if you know what I mean.

She snickers into her glass and says, yeah I  do, hon, now I can do

all the things I used to.....all the things. I followed his directions, it was worth it.

Mike says Terry should be here soon for his shift,

maybe you could show me your techniques, when I get off.

Techniques for doing things on my feet? You wouldn't

stand a girl up now, would you Mike?

Actually I was thinking that's exactly what I'd like.
to stand you up. know what I mean?

My bunions don't bother me so much with my shoes off.

How about another Vodka Cran for the road?

Regular guy in the corner says, Mike you're on fire!