some thoughts on beauty

I hear a flock of crows cry

as they fly above

the Charles Schwab office

in the blackness of

the pre dawn sky.

Invisible from below,

black wings against

the starless black,

is it distress or discovery?

I can not know.

I stop and strain

to see them

but I can't and so

I return my gaze

to what's in front of me;

half a dozen bodies

shrouded in sleeping bags

lined up against the cyclone fence

protecting a construction site

at Main and Howard.

I had been struggling to consider

what beauty means to me,

is it places or faces,

some ineffable harmonies?

I can not know, although,

there are landscapes

that slow my heart

and a face that quickens it,

can the cries of hidden crows

fit somehow within it?

What of the men

and women hidden

in their sidewalk slumber,

what fills their hearts

with joy instead of sorrow?

Morning Mind

Morning mind aswirl

with thoughts of hell.

Not the fiery sulfured

landscape where the

souls of the damned

suffer eternal torment.

Just mulling something

I read in a book review

in the New Yorker.

The notion of hell

as a state of being,

not a physical place.

That state being

a vast remoteness

from the love of God.

Which makes sense.

If sense is the best way

to approach it and I don't

think it is. So I put that

on the back burner.

Musing as I rode the elevator

up to the office and listened

to the mellifluous female voice:

"Going up." and then

"Sixth... floor" as if I was

arriving at the gates

of heaven itself.

And I wondered about

the woman whose voice

makes the announcements.

Like if this is her profession;

doing elevator recordings.

She puts enough heart into it,

I don't think just anyone could.

I once wrote a poem

about an elevator

that instead of going up,

descended straight to hell.

When I stepped off,

Richard Nixon was there

to greet me. I imagine

he'll be there to welcome

Donald, and his faithful

Roger Jason Stone.

Blood wolf moon

No is a hammer,

but Yes………..

-is the word

that gives birth

to the world.

The kitten dressed

in black pajamas

says - where's

my kibble?

And the moon

goes about its

eternal way,

yesterday is just

another day.

I say

-really?

I saw that blood

wolf last night.

And the words

that filled the air

were not the ones

that filled my heart.

I laughed at your

momentary tease

and then the clouds

revealed your naked skin,

dimmed and limned

in the shadow

of your mother, here,

where we live,

day to day,

and each day 

is born in words

etched in fire.

Mug shots

I like thick white diner-style mugs.

And dinosaurs. Got both on my desk.

A mug and the beautifully rendered

plastic triceratops who stares

defiantly at my favorite cup.

It reminds me of the actual

skull I saw displayed on a table

in a locked room at UC Berkeley.

A skull the size of Volkswagen hood.

It was tooled (the toy, not the skull

or the Volkswagen hood)

in Schwäbisch Gmünd by the

toy animal maker Schleich.

Schwäbisch Gmünd was also

the town where the American

Pershing Missile command was

headquartered before Ronnie

and Gorby decided to ban them.

I couriered some nonsense

up there once, after I became

a conscientious objector,

it was a nice drive in the summer.

I have a couple of real fossils,

a leaf on a small slab of sandstone,

the miniature tricertops stands

on top of that, and the shell

of an ancient ammonite.

Ammonites looked like a cross

between a snail and an octopus.

That one is next to my tiny buddhas,

two inch Eifel Tower, and White House

pencil sharpener. (made in China)

Pockets

Put on a coat I hadn't worn in a while.

In one pocket was a business card

for a film archive whose director died.

The last time I saw him,

I thought he was someone else,

so I missed the chance

for one last conversation.

A second card,

was in the pocket too,

the lead oncologist at Kaiser.

He seemed to be a kind man.

We only met him once,

The followup appointment

never happened,

it was too late.

Wrapped around his card,

a couple of lotto slips

without a single matching number,

but they never do,

my fortune was in the other pocket,

a ticket to a basketball game

where everything changed,

and a future opened

beyond the pain,

where all the numbers

now seem to align,

it's all cherries and sevens

spinning up on the payline,

and the bells are chiming

jackpot jackpot jackpot.

Why not?

I cried

for a month

and a week.

The ashes

from paradise

fell.

The feral cats

left pawprints

dipped in them

on the windshield.

The rain fell.

Washed them off.

She came to me.

And we knew.

It was plain.

The door

to sunshine

was open,

and the clouds

we saw, could be

whatever we choose

to see: the promises

if we dare to say,

why not?

Quitting

I didn't see the diamond back

until his fangs were buried

in my left arm and the venom

was about to flow.

I grabbed him by the neck

right behind his head

and tried to pry him loose.

He let go of my left arm,

twisted his head around

to bite my right.

His fangs were just

piercing my skin when

I woke up. Trembling.

And I didn't know what

to make of this dream at first,

but then it dawned on me.

Get this poison out before it kills me.

And it isn't easy, I get out the left 

and he resists, tries to get me

on the right. I ain't quit the fight.