Rainbows

Someone had spilled

a rainbow of jujubes

on the dun sidewalk

of this rainbow town.

The South-of-Market

rats and pigeons

had yet to scarf

them up. If they will.

Maybe they don't care

for gummy candy.

I don't like the green ones.

Do rats have color vision?

Google says

they are dichromats,

the colors of their world

are dull and faint.

So no rainbows

in rat world,

no azure skies

or rosy dawns,

they rely on

perpetually twitching

noses and the cloak

of night. So perhaps

it's not any distaste

for gummy candies,

they just wait for

the quiet after last call

and the people who share

the downtown sidewalks

have crawled inside

their tents.

Her middle name is Grace

She looks so much like her dad,

my departed youngest brother.

I see him in her face.

Mouth, nose, and eyes.

Light spray of freckles.

And when she's thinking,

his distant gaze.

He took his life.

She took his ashes

and his dog back to England.

Buried the ashes

beneath a hoary oak

in Cannock Chase.

On another visit,

the dog tried to dig them up

but it didn't bring him back.

There is one thing

that her father left her,

besides the dog, her face, and pain:

In her work

as a mental health aide,

when suicidal patients say

that friends and family

will be better off without them,

she can tell them,

No, they will not, I'm not.

And all her baby girl

will ever know of her grandpa,

are loving stories, pictures,

and an oak in Cannock Chase.

Casualties

I saw a vulture

crouching over

some poor creature's 

mangled body

on Tamalpais Avenue

yesterday.

It flew up

as cars approached,

then quickly returned to it's task.

At noon today, 

the sirens cried

at 14th and Broadway

where a body shrouded

in a sleeping bag

stirred and moaned.

Two Downtown/Uptown

courtesy officers bent

and tried to get his name.

The pedestrians stepped around him

when the crossing signals

bleated go.

Words on the breeze

A sharp wind ruffles the leaves

of the olive trees that line Avenue H.

Do they catch

my whispered dreams?

The ones I send

up into the blue

to ride

the feathered clouds.

No one to harvest

the fruits these days

and their days

grow fewer,

the chain saws'

hungry maws await.

When the olive trees

are gone,

where will the branch

that offers peace be found?

Give us this day

Another day when I

haven't pecked a word

or snapped a shutter.

However,

the pork chops

were excellent

and the eastern sky;

magnificent.

With just a snap

of my fingers

twelve years slipped,

and she,

who took me to

far places

and into her heart,

was gone.

If I were to blink,

would that take me

to the brink,

the dusk,

when we return

to the promised

ashes and dust,

tomorrow?

Tomorrow.

I'll make the sauce

I've made a thousand

times before.

And serve it with joy,

seasoned with sorrow,

savor the moments

however brief,

blessed by Fortune

or Savior, I say,

Give us this day,

this day.

He She

Decisions, decisions

The omelet or the crepes,

blue shoes or black.

Which name gets the ink

and which one does not.

Who gets two dollars

and who gets a nod.

The fork in the trail,

the fork in the road,

The fork for the salad

or the fork for the fish.

When to speak,

or still my tongue.

Aim the missile

or walk away.

Omelet, blue shoes,

Progressive, Larry

Salad fork, speak up,

Walk away.