For Ray
That latent urge to lead a bohemian lifestyle,
from the first reading of Ferlinghetti, Ginsberg, Kerouac,
Balzac, Bukowski, and Burroughs through
The first hitchhike in the rain and sleet , back from college,
The Across America quest-hitchhike up the coast of California
Drinking homemade beer in a crash house looking at the Crystal Ships at nite
Platform Holly, an oil rig off the coast of Santa Barbara, California,
Dudes: “the Doors rented a house next to this one years ago, man, far out”,
Hare Krishna chants in San Francisco,
Being shot at by bikers at point blank range, further up the coast,
near Oregon,
No bullet holes, blood!—“We are alive”!—a hell of a rush!
Spending three days in a house full of crazy kids in Corvallis
Fixed the driver’s VW, and headed up the coastal highway 101
Palm reading on the CNR train from Vancouver to Toronto,
The predictions all came true including the palm reader’s tearful premonition
of her unfortunate early death,
Decades of tailored suits, the merit badge pursuits, cologne,
tightly closed garbage can lids, and
the deadly routine, the deadening money hunt,
and well, Respectability,
Is This a Dead End?
Can anyone Ever Recalibrate? Really!
Who knows?
Petition the gods…
The Human Condition
Missed the train, boat, plane
She left you flat
No call, just a crappy e-mail, totally ambiguous, vacuous and vain
No good deed shall go unpunished —severely
Yet you get up and try again
Because it is the Right thing to do
It is Just the Way You Were Raised
Do the Noble thing no matter what the cost
And seriously—you are Really beginning to like having the wind knocked out of you,
Bent over breathless, on the ground hurting, an addictive, cold rejection!
— if only for the Rush
Both the pain and the challenge that
One of these Days
You
Will Truly Do What is Right and Good
Cold Weather
This time of year the brackish water is blown out across the Bay into the sea
Exposing the detritus once hidden, boulders, lumps, sad empty promises,
Broken hearts
Things that just did not work out, busted things, and the lost treasures
Spring blows the warm water back in across the Bay from the Sea
Hiding it all again.
Life is really not that complicated,
The Foolish Thing
She was his Elmer’s Glue All
A full bottle, lovely, tall graceful Tube, very smart, intelligent
A beauty, pure, white alabaster skin, epic goddess.
He periodically fell off of the shelf—hard!
Came off the ceiling, off the wall, down the vent
Crashed into bits all over the floor!
He knew he had very little to work with
And knew he Was an Effort
And he knew he was Trouble, a Challenge
But also he knew he was a Hinge
A connector who gave Her
Just the right kind of brain patterns
That poets write about
Enough for Her to be Her and More, at the Next Level.
A Question of Taste
When it is good
The snow blows through the sun.
And melts,
as it should, across a hot runners brow. And there are
High Holy Animal pelts, and
soft succulent brushing, Dancing eyebrows, when it is good.
Time stands still, and hallways.
Are Halls, Toyotas are Porsches,
When it is good Love rules and your Love
Lover is your crown, thrown, queen,
Newfound Gold
Your are never to be old, love locked ancient hold
It should always be good:
Good, Good, Good!!!
It it were, worms would walk
Animals talk
All feelings New and
I would be Only with You!
