The Catch

a voice out a nearby window

-did Betty White just die?

and the Russian girl next door

says something to her pit bull.

-he's frisky and bilingual

and the black and white

post war melodramas play out

on the post millennial screens.

am I like the jailor who

slides a tray of cardboard hope

with a side of
reconstituted mashed potatoes

under the cell door?

a leathery guy

inked from wrist to shoulder,

apparently a truck driver,

leans on his cane

on the weedy lawn downstairs.

he's all wound up about

some shit he's getting handed

by the company, the union
and the cops.

his voice gets smothered
under motor noise.

-the leasing authority

maintenance crew is busy

chopping off the heads of dandelions

on green and yellow riding mowers.

back in the dim bedroom

a back to back to back

show about the crab fishermen

in the icy Bering Sea
plays on and on all afternoon.

the catch is measured in

hundreds of thousands of tons,

a quota determined each season.

elsewhere -here in this room-

the crab has a quota of it's own

Riches

That afternoon

when I was so mistaken:

Ten thousand monarchs

clung to the naked August boughs

of a buckeye and I thought-

-that they were the dead

orange and black striped leaves

that had yet to fall

onto the dismembered sidewalks

that buttressed the old road

from February floods.

Then they fluttered

and my heart stopped.

so to speak.

I'm saving that for another day,

the final one.

when I hope that I can bring them back

one more time.

And I might not have the touch of your hand

just below my heart like the night we met.

But I still feel it anytime I want to bring it back.

As everlasting as the feathers

of the delicate lithographic wings

of Archaeopteryx. Forever.

The main thing

The water main

on Sturgeon Street

burst Saturday afternoon.

Left tiny, scalloped

waves of silt

in the gutter.

The mother who lives

across the street

handed bags from Target

to her awkward son.

He ran up the stairs

without looking back

at her deliberate pace.

She had most of the bags.

Now the kitchen faucet

sputters and hisses:

all is well, all is well.

In the kingdom

Given a chance,

the vegetable kingdom

exploits any twenty grams

of soil.

Lodged in any crevice

where water drips from a roof

a flag pole or a phone line,

a rivulet across the asphalt

gives a sip, a kiss,

a royal flush

from a deck stacked

against anything green

or flesh or giving a shit

about any aspiration.

The moon was wreathed

in a veil of steam,

a gauzy bride hotly gazing

at this balcony on the 14th floor

where I sought a ghostly breeze.

I could smell the chicken

grilling on the street below

but not the flowers or the sweets.

The traffic had yet to sleep.

It was morning back home and the tv said 

the hills were burning once again.

The thief and the thug cuddled up

and devised their schemes to deceive

in the city on a finger of the Baltic.

The price of a soul

Every ville and burg or burb

has a crossroads.

Where souls get traded

to Mr Scratch.

Over breakfast

in Brussels.

Or a Manhattan

in Manhattan.

The sidewalk preachers

at Market and Powell

say the End Times

are near, selling fear

and the promise

of redemption

while one of the lost ones

nurses a forty ounce beer

in a brown paper bag

and a crooner performs

for the tourists lined up

for the cable car ride.

Like a web or a magnet

a gravitational hole

where energy flows

and souls can be bought

for a dollar or two

at 14th and Broadway

in Oakland, or a million

or two in DC on K Street.

De Lauer's Newstand

on Broadway

established in 1907,

pipes classical music

to the sidewalk

out in front.

Perhaps a tradition

begun long before

the immigrant owners

who now sell the sundries

and more magazines

than I've ever seen in one place.

Across the street

a man throws his coat

on the ground and screams

obscenities at the window

of the Walgreen's

for an hour.

And the arsonist

makes his grand tour

from Belgium to England

to Scotland and Finland

brandishing his hair,

his red tie, and his power.

Moon

Veiled moon, wind chimes,

bridge lights half seen

through the fog.

Unglamorous, unsung,

her gibbous face erased

as she gazes on

El Paso, Paris

or Pakistan

and we try

to remember

if she wanes

or waxes.

I took my mother

for a stroll

down the street

behind the senior

housing where she

now dwells.

I say stroll,

actually I rolled

her wheel chair.

And she pointed

to some blue wildflowers

growing in a vacant lot.

So I picked a small bouquet,

and put them in a jelly glass

of water in her room.

On the window sill

where she could

look at them.

We watched Jeopardy

and a show about

a butterfly that only

lives in five small places

on the coast of Oregon.

They might soon be gone.

And the blue flowers

in the jelly glass

on the window sill

began to droop

within the hour.

Mom was ready

to sleep before

the sun went down

and the veiled moon

peeked through

the gathering

evening clouds.

A Fish Story

The summer of '78

I did a lot of fishing.

For trout in the Sierra.

We lived on 34th

off H in Sacramento

and I had a morning

car route delivering

the Chronicle.

I'd be done before six

and be casting a hook

into a crystal stream

before eight.

The fishing license

comes with a small

booklet of all

the regulations

- the legal seasons,

types of gear,

catch limits, etc.

Certain streams and rivers

were designated as

"catch and release".

I don't recall that there

was any reference

to human beings.

The purpose of the

restriction was to preserve

a healthy population.

It works quite well for trout,

I guess they are more important

than people seeking asylum.