Monday, July 29, 2013

Low Flying Jets (from Red Book Poems)


Sitting in the open-yawn wilderness
of Nebraska thinking about crust-eyed
Venice Beach California, low flying jets
behind mists over the violent gray
shoulders of the invincible
                             Pacific.

What rules apply?
             Hard to tell.
             Nose to the grind of it
             perilous world down
             under it ready to
             swallow us up
             when the time comes.

More bones for fields.

So now a low flying jet-roar soft deep
                   hum/boom
vibrates the Nebraska ground underneath
          the lawn chairs
          reminding me of that
          Los Angeles coast
                               line
back when I thought the L.A.
               vision was real

               betrayal and
               hell-cold murk
               in those splintered
                        doorways

               nets cast off to be
               fishers of souls
               and the angry heat of
               a summer city
               swelter

               heat huff dry
               engine groan
               underhood

                gas pedal down.

AM radio talk shows in the
          intensified dream
          of American highway
          interstate

cold bone light rest stop flicker
                                      buzz
moths senseless fluff
                 poof collisions
                 with light bulbs
                 like humans
                 colliding with
                 dreams of
                 stars.

After nightfall a thunder
of fireworks blossom in the east, untangle
themselves in spider leg sky
blasts of sparks, BOOM-A-THOOM WOOSH
                                    CRACKLE.

Humidity slows the gibraltarian smoke
plumes cast aside like
                    a used up net

(fisher of souls).

Wind blows open the back
kitchen door creak then
walk over, thud it closed
               gently lock.

Ash sings to our three month old
          Jesse backed by
          the stove top light
          brightly casting long
          fuzz shadows
          across the kitchen
                             floor.

He stares up at her face giant
       luminous blue watery
       eyes, having just completed
       a 9:30 PM
       bath - comfort
       now on her lap
                sing lulled to
                 heavy lidded
                 doze then
                  sleep.

‘Hinky dinky parle’ vous’

Somehow reminds me of how the
Texas night closed in on me in
2006 on my way to San Antonio
pulled off to the side of the road
           (specific wide shoulders
              built  along the infinite
              stretch of Texas highway
              like a rest stop minus
              the state funded
                 buildings)
awoke in terror fright pitch
black night outside every
window of the car and not
a single sound of nearby
interstate traffic or
yawn of distant motion,
            just an absurd
            breeze carrying with
            it possibilities I
            had no interest in
            and gunned out
            of there with super
            natural fear slamming
                     my heart.

No morning mists in that June
of 2006.  Arid palmy sensual aired
            San Antone,
            untouched pulpy
            green vines and
            nodding palm
            trees.

- - - - - - - -

(May 25-26, 2013)

Monday, July 15, 2013

FREDERIC CHOPIN - NOCTURNES complete

Spring is Fair and Furious (Black Book Poems)


Dance in a flutter
of light, flood of dirty sudsy
washer water down in
the basement of our new house
macabre clog in the works, plumber
was called right away.

I’m mixed around as to what
day it is. Living amongst
boxes and children.
Third story claw foot bathtub,
giant carpet scissors deadly
ridiculous on the kitchen
counter, car parked out
on 34th street , open
mouth dumpster, tangle of
steel steps in back of the
red brick apartment building
across the way. No stink
of garbage, just clear eyed
spring fresh white bloom on trees
spring fevered cool temperatures.

- - - - - - -

Night comes on slow.
Saturday evening traffic
increases, heard sirens
and crashing speed
earlier, trance music
on behind me as my son runs
consecutive laps in the tiny
backyard, baby boy on a
peach colored blanket
complains to daughters
Izzy and Zoey
on the lookout for
ants on the sidewalk.

Fresh breezed doors are wide open to hosts of
possibilities, all in usage
of particular spaces, our
spaces fill with music,
laughter, hot food, cleaning
laundry, emptying boxes one
final time before life is committed
to book shelves, old rickety
tables, dark avoided creep
of basement,

sunshine on the
final glimpse nearing twilight,
torn jet streams, distant
deep dog bark blocks miles
away, the other side of
streets and shops, churches
and vast groceries, tight
lipped too expensive gas stations.

Hot coffee, deep sacred blue
denim evening surrounded
by old crooked windows and
tangles of electrical wires
transmitting the
light and glook vision.

Mass of clouds of crawling teaming
ants and billions of toddling
bugs and beetles and slow stretch
of slime worms.

Heaps of foul smelling glurk
mud of Nebraska marshes.
Hard mosquito bite itch.
Patches and swathes of bathroom soap
old wives tale remedy.

Sing it
out like a sad saw,

shine out fair
sun casting tint
shadows at 72nd
street and Dodge.

Light of Spring everywhere, stretches
out the skin of my face like
a salt water ocean tide
flushing out eyes and breath
in blur-muscled undertow.

- - - - - - - -

(March 25th, 2012)

The Best of Chopin