Dawn song

Invisible birds

singing up the dawn.

I can’t see you,

but I know you’re there,

and it’s a comfort.

Are you the ones

the child made

from mud and

brought to life

with his breath?

LA Story

Los Angeles, California,

7th & Broadway,
Noon, May 1980.

I'm on the southwest corner in front of a jewelry store.

A panoramic display window diagonal to the corner

with big gold watches for men, brutal, blunt, and heavy.

Dainty ones for ladies, too many diamonds.

Derdre (Dee) is across the street, kitty corner.

We're hawking our big stuff commie newspapers,

we’re outside agitators in the downtown LA garment district.

No skyscrapers, no blank, gleaming, mirrored windows here.

No smoked glass or polished granite, these windows can be opened.

With ornaments, pediments and friezes

where pigeons roost and shit.

You know; an old fashioned city street, made for people.

It's kind of worn, a little threadbare and gravy-stained,

Grimy in that good way that takes a century to achieve.

Get the picture?

The sidewalks are leopard-spotted with old chewing gum.

Discount clothing stores, bottom rung electronics shops

crammed with cheap gadgets; pawnshops.

Check cashing, loans, bail bonds, shysters.

Men pushing wheeled racks of shirts and coats

steering around the window shoppers.

Women dressed as if they just stepped off the bus

from Oaxaca or San Salvador.

With a string shopping bag slung over a shoulder

or dangling from one hand,

a child's hand clutched in the other.

Something somethings in the perennial jeans and a tee,

even a few men in suits, some cheap, some pricey.

But the story is......

I've got a stack of newspapers clamoring for revolution

and I'm spouting the correct revolutionary  line,

trying to catch the eye of passersby.

-Friends, I'd like you to consider this:

last week a sleeping volcano exploded up in Washington.

You know the one, Mt. St. Helens blew it's top off,

it was all over the television, the newspapers...

But there is another sleeping giant in this country, 

he ordinary people, the extraordinary people,

the people like most of you walking down this sidewalk...

The “masses” are doing their best to look the other way.

Dee is on the corner across from me,

the paper clutched in her hand held high above her head.

Looks like she's selling a few.

At least to the men who stop to check her out,

maybe they'll even read them.

That kid on the skateboard or that woman

who looks like she's on break from a factory

dead weary at noon, leaning against the bricks…

Oh man, here come the Baptists,

five young men and women

sweating in dark suits and ties,

or modest floral print dresses.

They all have bibles firmly in hand.

One of them steps out in front

and the others form a chorus line behind him,

their faces a grim backdrop for his beaming. sweating face.

-Hallelujah! Have you heard the joyful news?

-Jesus loves you. Jesus loves you all.

And he's looking right at me with that huge blissful smile.

but his eyes are knowing, and challenging.

I pause in my revolution-evoking rant:

...it is time to strip the mask off this beast named...

and stare back at him.

Now he's right up in my face, right here.

-Have you heard the news, brother, Jesus loves you.

Slowly, calmly, deliberately, with  warm sincerity, I reply, Fuck Jesus.

He blinks, but his smile widens and I smile back; warmly.

It's like some odd kinship between us recognized, 

but, we will not speak of it.

He nods almost imperceptibly and moves on down the street

his testifying flowing on without a pause.

and I too am having such a good time today,

just putting out my stuff and grooving on the bustle.

Nothing’s  gonna touch me today.

Not them, not anybody.

At least nobody is trying to kill me.

It's been two weeks since Damien died in my lap

on a sidewalk in that East LA housing project.

Those vatos locos with their knives,

jumped out and stabbed him as we marched through

the projects waving our little red flags and chanting

like we were some kind of elite squad of the Red Guard.

But then we had to back there the next day and the next day

just me and Dee, more discretely, no flags or banners or chants,

just slipping into apartments to talk to people,

try find out what happened. Why did they kill him?

They said it was a setup,

the housing cops put the word out to the homeboys

from the Pico Aliso Gardens.

So now, standing on this street corner downtown

surrounded by hundreds of people feels pretty damn safe.

Even if those two cops over there are watching me.

Whatta they want? With their mirrored shades and contemptuous smiles.

-......People! check it out; the ones who own this country,

the ones who pull all the levers and make the deals and the money

off of your backs, your sweat, your blood, you know what I'm talkin' about,

well they sent their lapdogs, the LAPD down here to try and shut me up.

Because they don't want you to hear the truth,

they don't want you to think about a solution,

they don't want you to hear about revolution.....

I drop the cigarette I'm smoking in the gutter and NOW!

They have me by the arms.

-Step over here, sir.

They make me lean up against the window of the jewelry store

i'm staring at all the  gold watches and wedding rings. 

Hands above my head pressed up against the glass,

legs spread to the side. It’s the classic search and arrest position,

the one we’e all seen a million times on television.

-We're going to have to cite you, son.

 throwing an inflammable device into a public thoroughfare.That’s radical.

The cigarette I just dropped into the gutter. Right.

They are crackin' up, cutting their eyes at each other, giggling.

And I can't help but smile too, because tomorrow 

I'm going home to San Francisco.

Hasta la vista, City of Our Lady,  Queen of Angels.

Offerings and takings

Lurid offers

were whispered

in willing ears.

Suitable arrangements

were offered, strokes

and secrets, coin, skin.

The sun rose

as always, warm

and indifferent.

And all were blessed

deserving or not.

You can count on it.

Is

In the space with zero substance,
a hole without edges or dimensions,
and time had yet to abandon zero,

a thought within the infinite Mind

that held the infinite nothingness

became the everythingness:

the first instant of eternity.

Quarks and quacking ducks,

dust bunnies and swords, dandelions.

Ink and saxophones, bacteria.

Ballerinas, quarterbacks, artichokes.

I woke. I forgot to tell you,

what I dreamt as I slept

until the cat woke me with

a toe bean touch on my cheek.

And I wondered why my dream

was about the architectural

techniques of trap door spiders.

Left overs

French toast, enchiladas

puttanesca, rice pudding.

casseroles, omelettes,

salsa, chimichurri. 

Mom saved bacon grease

in a Folgers coffee can.

Never bought bread crumbs

or chicken stock.

Where she came from,

the Texas and Oklahoma 

panhandle, they ate everything

because there wasn’t much.

Those habits stuck.

If we had pot roast,

chuck of course, she

saved the drippings.

The next day we’d have

Okie steak, bread soaked in

the drippings then fried

in bacon grease. We loved it.

The custom passed on to me,

I make enchiladas, french toast

rice pudding, chuck roast.

I save bacon grease, but I

Don’t do Okie steak, although

I’ve tried it a few times

when money was tight.

Drippings are good for

Other things. Like enchiladas.

goulash. French onion soup.

I grill extra mushrooms, peppers,

squash and onions. For omelettes. 

A terrifying thing

Twelve sparrows

fashioned from mud

in the hands of a child

took wing

when he shouted

Go, take flight!

A terrifying thing. 

Road Kill

On a late summer night

southeast of Livermore

tarantulas were on the move.

Hundreds, thousands

going somewhere

only known to them.

We drove slowly, the radio

softly playing corridos and

Conjunto Norteño songs,

trying not to squish

the armies of spiders.

We were looking for snakes.

Just to see them, mostly;

move them off the road.

Didn’t find any that night,

but we did see a San Joaquin kit fox.

A dead one, in the road. It was still

warm and had no visible injuries.

My friend wanted to take it. What? 

She said, For my collection.

It would make a beautiful mount.

We moved it off the road

instead, so it could feed

vultures, beetles, and rats.

Sad that this graceful being

the size of a small cat,

tried to cross a back road

too close to a rowdy cowboy saloon

deep in the dark heat of the Diablo Range,

fifty miles from any town.