Words in the dark

Words come to me

in the dark,

when the sun

is just a promise.

Are they the dreams

i don't remember

sneaking up to

the horizon?

Like the glow

that grows above

the eastern hills

and all the stars

hide from the furnace

of the one that warms us,

but keeps us at the end 

of gravity's leash?

I don't know.

The vapor trails

chase the tails

of the days first flights

across the sky.

The gulls wake up,

take up their perches

on the street lights

dimming out.

Begin their search

to break their fast,

their cries announce

it's here, I've found it.

And if I pay attention,

I find something too,

before the hiss

of traffic on the bridge

and what all I need

to do today takes over

and reverie is replaced

by practicality and light.

She watches me

She watches me.

from her perch beneath

the wooden Buddha's smile

Does she share

that everlasting peace?

I put her there so she could see

all I do, even if that means

she laughs at me -which I expect

she often has reason to.

Hope she doesn't mind

that I've commandeered her desk

and take up the whole bed

now that I have room.

Because I'm here and now

with all the itches and the kisses

yet to be. And the channels I choose

to put me to sleep are not

her cop dramas and mysteries.

Winter solstice has now passed,

each day the light grows stronger,

the streams begin to flow,

and the hills are showing green.

I think she approves of the things

I keep and those which get passed on.

That the tears I shed can be again

for things of wonder, love and beauty.

I bet she laughs and shakes her head

when I get misty about some corny song,

Yeah, I'm still here and I haven't tossed out

all your souvenirs and soaps and magnets.

Are you happy now,

in a place I can't imagine?

or here, perched beneath

the wooden Buddha,

smiling like he does, at me.

Christmas '72

The grass was brown.

matted. Everything

was winter naked.

No duties.

no letters from home.

Just a slip

of paper with

a drop of LSD.

A way to pass

……….the day,

the emptiness.

And it wasn't like

the way

I remembered.

Except for the metallic

taste on my tongue.

and the tension

crawling up my back

when coming down.

The leaden sunset

of the night to come

loomed much too long.

I scored a nickel

of creamy looking

smack from Lizard

that he and Dimartini

had brought back

from Amsterdam.

Put it up my nose.

and then……

the barracks room

was a golden palace

and I was molten.

Like an infant wrapped

in swaddling cloth...

and the music

on the stereo…

was like a chorus

of angels…….

but it was just

the Rolling Stones.

I had disappeared

inside the euphoria.

So the morning

after Christmas,

I knew that I would heed

the warning:

Do not feed the tiger.

Roseanne

Roseanne is balanced

on a branch above me.

Pries a chunk of bark

off a rotted section

of the trunk.

Oh, she coos,

in her froggy voice

deeper than a boys,

deeper than mine.

She holds up

a slender, gray,

ensatina, what we call

a tree salamander.

It does not struggle.

We climb back

to the ground.

Inspect our prize.

It looks at us

with placid eyes.

Roseanne reaches

up the tree and releases

the delicate creature.

We head further up the hill

to the rocks where

blue belly lizards bask.

She's as good or better

than me, her quick hands

dart with grace and skill

grabbing lizards and never

breaking their tails.

We catch a few

then let them go,

decide to go back down

behind the barn to throw

rocks in the manure pond.

There's a cat licking kittens

in the sunshine in the doorway

of the barn. She lets us pet them.

Manuel, the dairyman is coming

down the gravel driveway

from his house.

We go inside and climb

up the hay bales to the loft.

To spy and whisper things

about him, as if he were

a villain. He's not.

But he thinks we'll upset

the cows and it's almost

milking time.

Tossing rocks into

the manure pond,

to make big splashes

like erupting green lava,

will have to wait until tomorrow.

So we go around the back

and zip across the driveway

to the pale stucco farmhouse

that her family rents.

The garden has hydrangeas

and snapdragons.

Those are the ones we like,

because you can pull off a blossom

and manipulate the petals

to imitate a mouth speaking.

That's what we do,

talk to each other with flowers.

I want to kiss her.

Boys and girls our age

supposedly don't share

that desire. I do but I don't

dare to ask.

Too shy and too afraid

that she doesn't feel the same way

and we'll never climb trees again

or throw rocks in the manure pond.

So the snap dragons talk about other things,

salamanders and shit ponds.

Power outage

I awoke in dark silence.

-just another power outage

on the island.

My cell phone lit my way

down the newly empty hallway

found some candles on the sideboard

that I'd set up for an intimate dinner

but had never yet

been touched by flame.

Brewed my coffee by candlelight

but didn't  I stick around this morning.

Take me to the city's light,

take me to BART.

A poster in the train says ACID solutions

from a company called Fauna

promises to manage damages

from chaos.

I don't recall acid ever doing that.

I suppose it must be something tech.

When I get to the office I have to check.

The news and book store

next to the exit from BART

is piping Gershwin to the street.

And Mike who sleeps

somewhere on the street

has his shopping cart and milk crates,

his graffitied flags and rags,

parked in the entry way

of Chase bank.

He's got his headphones on,

he's hopping from foot to foot,

dancing, singing, talking to the air

in his non stop

twenty-four-seven stream

of motherfucker this

and motherfuckin' that,

delivered in a voice

laced with laughter,

-vocal cords as rough

and raspy

as Wolfman Jack.

No customers as yet

in the predawn darkness

for the Newport shorts

that he sells one by one.

So apparently ACID stands for

Atomicity, Consistency,

Isolation and Durability.

Ensuring that ACID compliant databases

can complete transactions

in a timely manner.

Right.

I understand that about as much

as Mike's croaking rants.

It will soon be time for Chase to open

and he'll move his cart and crates

to the exit from the 12th Street Oakland

BART Station. Heart of Oakland.

Where he can cackle and laugh

at people coming up the escalator,

sell his cigarettes and bottled water

to people undeterred by his Tourettes.

What I learned this week

I made a pineapple pie.
Like the ones at grandma's
from holidays long past.
This time re-imagined,
for the now.

One fresh pineapple
sweetened with some
of the palm sugar
I brought home
from Cambodia.

I save this sugar
for special dishes.
It was delicious.
Simple ingredients
in the right proportions.

I learned that Venus
would shine extra brightly
before the break of dawn
as our celestial paths
around the sun converged.

So I stepped out into the dark
and watched her rise above
the rooftops across the street.
An amber ember to ignite
the day with hope.

I photographed sixty-two
Thai silk shirts or blouses.
Jackets, tunics or tops?
I don't know what to call them.

Each one hand made
for she who wore them
nearly every day she taught.
There was a lesson in that:
Embrace the world, be her lover
and she will embrace you back.

I hung them one by one in the entry,
where the light was right and strong,
and each one was a stepping stone
to help me across the river
from treasured past to gifted present,
the shore ahead emerging through the mist.

rainy days lead to this

There are eighty six billion neurons

in the average human brain.

More than all the galaxies

in the universe. 

I believe that's quite a few more

than my phone.

How many work in concert

to write a symphony?

Determine the difference

in fine-grained degrees

between wine

and vinegar.

Ponder the mysteries

of the flesh and the divine.
To tie a shoe?

Sink a perfect three

off the dribble,

connect in sweet harmony

to savor a blissful kiss?

To simply maneuver a spoon

between thumb and finger expertly,

requires more than a year

in infancy.

What neural multitudes are involved

to summon the faint recollection

of the sandy den my grandpa's dog

dug under the loading ramp

for that old flatbed truck?

How cool it was inside,

where I could hide

from the burning zenith

of the noon time sun.

And now I have to make

a careful effort to put a key

into a lock. The vision from

my one good eye lacks

the stereoscopic precision.

I heard a woman on the radio

whose injuries stripped her mind

of language. Despite her confusion

she felt a encompassing peace.

Perhaps something similar

occurs to masters of meditation.

Oh what would it be like to tell

those eighty six billion neurons

to whisper, to pay attention

only to this, this fulsome moment

suspended between the one just before

and the next one.

It's alright though, to become aware

that my foot's gone to sleep,

and I need to remember the rent's

due tomorrow, and I'll try to summon

the afternoon's bliss when sleep

enfolds me in her arms.

After all there's a whole universe

that lives in my mind.

I'll take door number three

Somewhere,

before an audience

who I'm not sure are live.

The game reaches

the pinnacle of it's drama.

The three doors.

Where I must choose between

what's in hand, or what's behind

the doors.

The unctuous host intones

Which door do you choose?

And I say I'll go with number three.

Let's see what's behind door number 1?

A Bentley and a mansion,

a villa on the Cote d'Azur,

and ten million shares

of blue chip stocks.

but you didn't choose it.

Now let's see

what door number two

is hiding.

A guarantee of perfect health

you''ll make it to a hundred

without a hint of arthritis,

flab or heart disease.

No knee or hip replacements

the eyes and ears and abs

of a twenty year old

and all the other parts

in perfect shape for a century.

But not for you 

cuz you chose three.

and now we're going to see.

A ninety six Toyota.

a rental cottage with a leaky roof.

Is that a cane I see beside the door?

Let's have a look inside.

A couch with thread bare cushions,

a couple pairs of worn out slippers.

A table set for two with

mismatched candles and flatware.

a bed that looks well slept in.

Sorry pal, I think you missed the boat,

the wealth, the health, the whole shebang.

What d'you have to say?

I won.

Previously

Alligator hunters know

the best way to get the big ones

is to imitate the distress calls

of the hatchlings.

Ants will sacrifice

their bodies to the flames

that threaten the colony.

Elephants visit

the graveyards

of their dead

and caress the bones.

I thought that twenty days

in the desert would suffice

for my contemplation

on these and other matters.

I'd sit beside a creosote bush

under the warm but weak

January sun at Furnace Creek.

Get in touch with God

and the Universe.

But I was wrong.

The weakness was my own.

The tab of orange sunshine

I'd brought along to facilitate

my meditations,

only allowed me to imagine

myself as a lizard

gazing out from his stony haven.

I could have done that at home.

Which was the actual nexus

of my discontent.

The weather turned.

A wind that never paused.

Sand and dust that soon

was caked in my long hair.

I borrowed some dish soap

from a family that looked at me

like I was nuts. And by the way

that was all the food I had,

a big bag of dried fruit and nuts.

I washed the grit out of my hair

in a sink in the campground restroom

and headed for the visitors center

to await the endless wind's surcease.

I must have watched the informative films

in the small theater there a dozen times.

Eventually I could quote the script exactly

drone on in that flat documentary

narrators style. About the geology,

the history and the mines.

The survival strategies

of flowering desert plants,

the tiny population of pupfish

in the Devil's Punchbowl,

and stranded pioneers.

Anything to fight the dribbling

hours and minutes while

the howling wind refused to die.

I sat down on a bench to watch

the families peering into

the glass encased exhibits

about borax mining

and the Devil's Cornfield

and a girl about my age sat down

beside me. We said hi, where you from,

are you bored? Then she asked me

if I wanted to make out.

We went into the theater

and waited for the lights to dim.

Kissed and stroked

until desire got so stoked

that we needed to find

a more private spot.

Her family was camping in a motor home,

no telling when they'd be back.

So I said, you wanna go to my campsite,

I have a tent and she eagerly agreed.

The wind was still like a dragon's

frozen breath and the dust still had teeth.

When we got to my camp,

she said, This is it?

My tent was just a thin black plastic tube.

Kind of like a extra large lawn and leaf trash bag

with a line of nylon rope strung though it

and lashed between two scruffy tamarisk trees.

Inside I had my army surplus

down mummy bag, which

was rated for sub freezing weather

but barely had room for one person to sleep,

let alone anything more adventurous.

She said, Oh. that's a chastity sack,

we gotta find something better than that.

But there wasn't so we walked

back to her family's motor home,

had one last goodnight kiss,

and promised to see each other

the next day.

They must have left before the sun rose.

The wind had finally calmed,

and a dawn of a different sort

arose within my mind,

that desert solitude in a wasteland

when the problem is loneliness,

is just a waste of time.

I could ponder about pachyderms

and alligators and the face of God

just as well back home.

And perhaps if I was lucky,

I'd find someone who shared

the same curiosity and desire.

A murder of crows

Mom found her in the classifieds.

Brought her home in a cardboard box.

Let me carry the box

from our Falcon station wagon

to the back yard patio.

I tipped it carefully onto it's side

and opened the top.

out hopped a crow.

She quickly skipped away

from my excited hands and eyes.

That's how I chose her name: Skippy.

I tried to get closer.

She cocked her head to look at me

and skipped crabwise into the garden

keeping a safe space between us.

I wanted to touch her glossy breast,

but that would take some trust I'd yet to earn,

no matter how much I yearned.

Skippy couldn't fly,

the tips of her flight feathers were clipped,

but she was much too quick

for a ten year old.

She explored our large back yard,

the ferns and rhododendrons,

the small fountain Dad had made

was soon a place to drink and bathe.

The house and yard 

were sheltered beneath the dome

of a four hundred year old oak.

Wild crows would come to perch in it

and talk to Skippy in their secret crow talk.

Crows have a bigger vocabulary

than you might think

if all you ever hear is caw caw caw.

They can even learn to speak

some human.

We taught her to say hello,

and she took it on herself

to learn a deep rich chuckle.

The one we did not intend

was when she learned to say,

shut up. Followed by the chuckle.

I didn't give up on my desire

to touch her. I just got patient.

Every day for a week

I lay on my belly in the family room

with the sliding door open.

She became curious enough to approach.

I kept my hands at my sides.

Let her get right up close to my face.

She allowed me to touch her

with the tip of my nose.

Two weeks later she let me

stroke her breast with my hand.

As soft as I imagined.

One night there was a commotion

outside in the back yard.

I couldn't hear it from my room

but Mom and Dad did.

They thought it was a cat.

Which Skippy had always been able

to handle, her beak was sharp and strong.

They went back to sleep.

In the morning, all that was left

on the backyard lawn was one wing,

a foot and a scattering of feathers.

That's when I learned what loss feels like.

When love is torn apart

and what remains

are scattered pieces.

No way to reassemble,

no way to turn back the clock

for even a day. Gone from all

but sweet memory.

Perhaps it was inevitable

that I would come to love

a woman who laughed

like a crow.