Embers

The angry, orangey worm

gnaws the manzanita root

makes a smoldering tunnel

through the soil recently

baked like a scone.

Grows fiery wings

and rides the wind,

glides gently down

to eat a house. 

I often dream without sleeping

My 4 a.m. head was crammed

with a dancing flame and fishes

that swam from cloud to cloud.

and a long ago naked plunge

in the pool of a New Mexico flash flood

fed by a rust-colored cataract.

Our bodies were speckled

and dusted with orange

when it dried on our skin.

And once again, for what

must be the ten-thousandth time,

that warm day one spring

when walking out a ranch road

on the green flank of the mountain

the Spanish named for the devil,

I saw a huge valley oak covered

with fresh sprouting leaves

trembling in the breeze.

Except there was no breeze

and the leaves were singing.

It was all finches, finches,

an orchestra of goldfinches

on their way north to nest and feast

on the seeds of grasses and thistles. 

Meeting for worship, Antigua Guatemala

the black-scaled lizard

clinging to the whitewashed trunk,

-black beans on tortillas

distant firecrackers

crackle like raindrops on leaves.

grackles sweetly sing.

yesterday the devil

was burned, today the virgin

is honored with bombs.

we sit in circles,

patiently wait for spirit’s

voice to fill our hearts.

english or spanish,

ki’che, kaqchikel, or mam

bomb blasts are banished.

Mr Ward

Mr Ward lived across the street

in a converted garage surrounded

by a wildly overgrown garden.

A few charred timbers lingered

under ivy that covered the

foundation of the house

where his wife had died

when the house burned down

some years before.

He never rebuilt it.

Mr Ward worked the night shift

at the Hamm’s brewery on

Bryant near Seals Stadium.

The Giants were playing there

while the new park at Candlestick

was under construction.

We could see the cranes

from the the street in front

of our house on the hill

in Brisbane.

Mr Ward would

sometimes come out

to join us, tell us stories

about people who had

lived up here on the hill.

Like the man who had lived in

the house that we now rented.

After a landslide next to the house

a riot of poison oak had erupted.

He cut it all down and burned it.

Stood close to the pyre

tending it. Breathed too much

of the smoke, which inflamed

his lungs badly.

Hospitalized,

but I don’t recall if Mr Ward said

that he died. just wanted us

to know, not to burn poison oak.

One day, as we standing

out in the street, a garter snake

crawled out onto the road.

I had never seen a real live snake

before.

It was beautiful, red and black

checkered sides, cinnamon and turquoise

around its head, a pale green stripe

down center of its back.

Mr Ward picked it up so I could

look at it. I turned to Mommy

and asked if I could keep it.

She laughed and said No,

not this one, maybe another one.

Mr Ward put the snake down

in the shrubs at the edge of his

garden and the snake quickly

disappeared. He said it guards

his yard from pests and varmints.

Later on, Mommy said Mr Ward

was a hermit. Because he lived in

that converted garage and

didn’t rebuild the house because

he wife had died in the fire.

I told her that when I grew up

I wanted to be a hermit too.

And have a wild garden with snakes

and work nights at Hamm’s

so I could play with my snakes

in the afternoon.

We moved away from Brisbane

a few months later to a brand new

subdivision in  Lucas Valley.

Mr Ward gave us a Century plant,

the kind that can go decades

before itt blooms. Which it did

years later.

And I caught my first

snake there, a huge gopher snake,

long enough to wrap twice around

my waist like a belt. I brought it

to the back door. When Mom

opened the door I said, “You

promised I could keep one.”

And so I did, the first of many.

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.