how good it is
to chop vegetables
into a bowl
roaring fire
good talk
belly full
car horns in the distance
but in this yard
simplicity
tonight my demons are sleeping
i nap on the moon
with zappa and boone
matt someone says
the onions are burning
let them rot
chop chop chop
into the bowl

a life revisited
in photographs
is muted, monotone
less vibrant, less song
less witnessing the flutter of oaks
less of the slow turning
of a hand
cooking a meal
reading the paper
weeding the yard
less kissing in alleys
of a city that has been
growing older without you
this photo album is too quiet
to a seven year old
narrated by a father
how can these pictures
be expected
to speak to the world
on your behalf?

you said come home in winter
but i was out
on a tension wire
and we had sierras between us
i argued that
days spent bunkered down
and frozen over were
for tougher hearts
you slipped under the covers
and said something
in a whisper
which sounded like
"i know a place
off the map
where snow is warm and laughter
is the squealing screaming catching of breath
ever running"
but in actuality it was
roll the dice,
plant a seed,
refrain no longer
allow that, which does not allow itself

strange
if i am to leave this town
the things i will no longer need
will never learn spanish
though every crowded house bus boy
tried to teach me
too much: "demasiado"
silly gringo borracho
the car can be sold
the bicycle too
what then
may i disregard
when this body
has been bartered
as fertilizer?

somedays i doubt
i could ever be old and
comfortable simultaneously
i watch finches eat trash
or wasted handiwork on a
walgreens billboard
labor of love?
how can i keep my head in the now
and not catch a whiff?
or do i learn to love the stench-
particles over the freeway
brown sifting
into our sock drawers
(cadavers of LA resident non-
smokers were
opened up with black lung)
fart, and pasadena smells it
are you all too tired
to read on the bus?
are you worn thin?
are you still chasing the children
running through your mind?
or have they left you behind?

what bad is karma?

st. louis youth convention
1995
kids gathered christ in hearts
i skimmed the streets for happenings
found purfume salesman
stole his orange backpack
3 bottles of aspen
dumped behind
public toilet
later lost my new watch
given by mom for christmas

2003 new
york to utah with band
of brothers
played soul house in conneticut
never saw the real stage
show held in basement
of shakesparean theatre
costume room upstairs
donned wigs and smoked
virginia slims- filters ripped
to the fag city lights of ruralia
stole musical equipment there
three days later lost it
in the wake of new england
flash floodstorm

liquored
three days ago
rude to jen
and street patrons at argentine
swordfish
whole lottsa sangria
flan con creme de dulce
hurled guts
and shit at same time
3am as the cats
stood by watching

haven’t paid taxes yet
what’ll happen now?
maybe car stolen
uninsured on Mildred St.
two weeks before
i drive to vegas
to sell it tax free

patch of soot
on my window sill
a coffee cup stain
or ash from a fire
no chimneys around
the grill out front
not used since July
aaahh, i says
hearing a distant honk
evidence of traffic
in the air
settles on lawn chairs
and fences and flower petals alike
even though
the sign at the end of my block
"Pedestrians Only"