The Leaves

the leaves are hard and crunchy
under our sneakered feet
there seems to be an opening
to the other side of the street
the city is forgiving
when the city is asleep
but what we couldn’t steal
is what we’d have to keep

autumn is an archway
the element of sound
curved into our finger flesh
the savage is aroused
it wouldn’t be amazing
if the leaves had just turned brown
you can see the darkness coming
it’s just a short time now

the mornings have their pull on me
the blanket is my friend
though they are bad dreams
I don’t want them to end
though they are bad dreams
I can raise the dead
the leaves and wind are out there
but not inside my head

dinner has a first name
breakfast is a child
though it’s slow and plodding
you can make him smile
you can lift the covers
you can fall inside
open all the windowstake me for a ride

November 1, 1999

TGICF (Thank God It's Casual Friday)

The traffic was sticky and slow
I was listening to my morning show
The crew were wild and wacky
Like crack babies on crack
The man in the next lane was staring ahead
At nothing, his baseball cap was on forward
I said "Who do you think you are, Tom Selleck?"
That's when the week flew by
In my personal collective unconsciousness
Monday, I don't like
Tuesday should be shot. Twice
Dry hump day bleeds into Thursday's dirge
As the gods of the 10 freeway blessed our merge
And I really don't have a morning show
I listen to compact discs
Made by men who take medium risks
As I drum the wheel with two-fingered fists
Goddamn it's slow today
But at least I can say
Despite every delay
Thank god
Thank god
Thank god
It's casual friday

February 4, 2005

No Hesitation

I won't hesitate
If you look back, you can see that
Although I run, I move, I shake
I never hesitate
Though I want to, at least once a day

I once held a picture
Of a girl who lived in a trailer
Her dad was dying of Vietnam
Her mom was sleeping, crypt keeping
The girl got out, it was the mid-80s
She went to college, she disappeared
But I held her picture for a moment
I dropped it silently
In a shoe box I can't recall the color of
Never seen her since
I tell this story
Not to boast, not to explain
I tell this story because it never comes out the same

Four years later (always later)
I drove from Brea to Bakersfield
I rode up hills and found the long driveway
Took a blonde girl to a horror movie
I don't know why
But I want to lie
And say we listened to her favorite albums
"Strangeways, Here We Come"
"Kiss Me, Kiss Me, Kiss Me"
Instead
As the misty gummy sky
Couldn't stop her from giving me directions home
We heard Edie Brickell and it didn't matter
I never saw her since
Though when she caught my eye
In the mall video arcade
It was like she was telling me
That the movie saved her life
(her friend had died the previous summer,
killed himself in his sleep)
But I didn't pretend
Anything saved anyone
And I tell this story
Not for sympathy, not for symmetry
But for preservation

18 years later (much much later)
I sat in this very spot
Talking up my movie plot
To a stranger signaling her neutrality
I listened to her as well (I think)
Her father died too
She'd been to the desert
That all happened
We nodded as we said goodbye
And considered a second date
I've seen her since
One time
Across the street
By accident

It's a sign
This determined lack of hesitation
This jumping into a life
I've learned
The closest I can get
To peace, to stillness
Is in the water
I should have been baptized
Even if I didn't believe
It would have felt like love

I took her to the water
The water's all I want

Did I really just say
"It's a sign"?
I've never mentioned signs before
All I say is everything else
All I want is to look into eyes
That look into mine
All I want to do is see the movement
And return to stillness
Of those eyes

I can't explain
In words because words
Are moving trains
I say this with no hesitation:
You've got to move even if you're shaking

May 2, 2007

Cities of America

They kind of look alike
Cities by the water
Little buildings, quiet corners
The days are almost identicial
April here, there July
And if I could, I would
Put it all together
Bottle the perfect weather
Take the time to make it right
Live and die a little each night
The cities of America
They're all the same, I love them

I walked away
I drove like thunder up the hill
Down another, around a bend
Kind of like the summer night
Back in '78
Dad drove us for ice cream
In the Pennsylvania countryside
While Prove It All Night played
For the first time ever, on WMMR

I had a job to do in 2006
Wait it out, until the show was over
Be strong and silent 'til the show was over
Be strong and loud when we went across town
To the Midwest bar, with the Midwest mouths
But I'd said all I wanted to say already
In the summers of '86 and '97
I had nowhere to go but down
The next day, she drove me to the airport
That felt like a bus station
Portraying a train station
And I haven't been to Milwaukee since

I feel better today
San Diego plays itself
Like a shadow of its former self
I remember back in '95
I got the phone call that Dad had died
And I don't know why but
The next day I drove and just kept driving
To the edge of town, past the edge of town
To the edge of big smaller towns
From North Hollywood to San Diego
In almost record time

Today, I broke the record
Down the fat and filthy 405
To the down and dirty 5
To the achy 805
Same towns, no darkness today
Just sun and good graces
Yes, I'll go places

I'll wait here on the patio
And write about another night
One I drove too slow
Ended up on the wrong side of Philadelphia
Followed the sun back to the north
Listened to Steely Dan sing of Haitian Divorce
23 years before I got myself an American one

Never trust memory
When it's only memory

Yes, all the cities look alike
When you're waiting under red umbrellas
That remind you of your family
That remind you of your honeymoon
That remind you not to speak too soon
Always trust your life
It's your only life

April 14, 2007

Natalie and Michael

Natalie spends the night
Walking country roads, taking pictures
Of UFOs and SUVs
But the secret is
Though the flash goes off
There's no film inside
No, she can't explain it

Michael's hotel bed
Seems sandy tonight
Like he went to the beach
And laid on the bed without showering
But that's not the case
It's just sandy
No, he can't explain it

Natalie asks her husband
Why she always looks better
In black-and-white photos
Why she looks like a spinster in color
But her husband's asleep
Dreaming of coffee and tomorrow's to-do list
So Natalie spits in his hair

Michael calls the front desk
"Can you send up new sheets?
I'll put them on myself"
The night-desk man, suspicious of requests for new linens
But obsequious to people like Mike
Sends up a fitted
And an unfitted

The next morning, at the stained glass shop in town
Natalie orders a new window
For the baby's room, "something with swans and hummingbirds"
The artisan nods and says what he always says
"How many hummingbirds? What color swans?"
"Seven and black"
Then she ventures to the pub for a hearty ale
And writes a song about a wedding veil
Michael stays on his new smooth sheet
And writes a song about the Arab Street
For Natalie, for when she deigns to sing again

Back home, Natalie retires
To her Great Room
With her opium and apple brandy
She dims the light 'til there's one candle left
She grabs her notebook (college-ruled)
Tears off the page with the wedding veil song
Burns the song into a dot
Finds a fresh sheet
And, with her quill pen, writes the words....

“I see a white light
It looks like a circus
But it’s not a circus
It’s only a light”

The next morning Natalie calls Michael
To wish him a happy birthday, a day early
Michael says thank you, acts distracted
And hangs up without saying goodbye
These conversations with Natalie have been going nowhere for years
He retreats to the hotel café to meet an old college friend, a fire eater
The friend says “Mike, we need to talk”
So Mike and the fire eater take a walk around the city
Past the stump houses and the peeling, sweating mansions
Past the girls on bicycles
And the boys on bicycles
Past Old Joe the Jazz Hippie
Past the garage where they worked on Mike’s Volvo
Back when he could still drive
The fire eater, a bowlegged woman with tattoos of volcanoes
Tells Mike to rest until he could sleep again
To stay quiet until he could sing
To travel the world and not trust
“People who look in yer eye when they speak”
Mike heeds her advice
But Natalie he can’t shake
When she calls back and says
“Must have lost reception”
He hangs up again, unplugs the hotel phone
Spills into the Pacific night, walking the low streets
With his Kangol on but no sunglasses
Nodding at those who recognize him
And cursing those who don't

2003

Seven Poems

Today, you get seven poems because:

-Today is Friday the 13th. "Lucky number 7" erases "bad luck 13."
-I haven't posted for a while... I need to catch up.

1. The Galleys

The galleys are shut down
For President’s Day
A marker for a dollar waits
Where a deck of cards will sit the day
After next
What a mess
The sky makes when it’s blue

One ship’s gray and withered
Another, spit-shined, waits for its crew
They call her Patricia
She doesn’t want sympathy
For beauty bleeds
What it fails to blur completely
Anyway, she’s a ship, not a person

At 4:00 PM, these places become each other
As big sister turns into little brother
And the buses roll on home
Ahead of schedule

The galleys are boarded up
For February
Tomorrow’s promise broken
Too soon, it’s not time yet
Patience is a pretty thing
A promised kiss, an open field
The ingredients are kept
Cool in the ocean realm
Until leap year’s extra pocket hides the keys
To the battered locker where they store the open seas
And the old men’s childhoods
Merge with the younger men’s thirsts
And the women hold the stature
In the minds of every man
Mothers, wives, and figments
Of scrolls of names misremembered
The galleys may never open
Again

February 2004 - Santa Monica, CA

2. However Far

The fear will skip generations
If it moves at all
Otherwise it will die a death
Typical of its ilk
Crying out for sour milk
And doubling the beauty

There’s a trembling before you
A treble full of bass
The lower notes hanging
From balconies
Like strung-up bags of flour

2004

3. Creature Names

If you call out the names
Loud enough, you conjure a scene
Where the landings are hard
But the sinew is tough
The prehistoric places
Are sick with forgetting
And full from the passing of years

We met at the mall
The one with the roller coaster
She explained it was halfway between us
Dinner was brisk
The movie, a risk
The walk to the parking structure a scene out of place
But we weren’t going anywhere

If I call up the names
From the pit of my brain
I’ll find that the knives
Cut on both sides
And the ministers are ladies too
That’s the brilliant truth

2004

4. The Beautiful End of the World

Do you/will you consider
This man to be your witness
To candles blown as rush to judgment
To sheets pulled tight like victimhood?

Do you/will you know where to go
As you tour the streets of your town
Its meddlesome reminders
That time is sinking?
The dirt of love

But then you slip
You look, you see
Curdled milk, a stray apostrophe
Seven hours to the rush of light
Shrouded by fog, the light becomes the color of your hair

But do you/will you and was he the one?
Is he in September as he will be in June?
Does he forgive the passing of the gentlest moon
Uncorrupted and sad as eyes
But still the color of morning light, your hair

Fevers in and up
Like fireworks in church
A million lesser evils
Than the circumstance of love

Did you/did you see the moss
As it cradled every rock
You came across in your latest pretty shoes?
If you did, you’re loved and if not, then
Love is a delicate curmudgeon

What you’re offering is a ray of moonlight
To a circus of cooing children
Or a carnival of kittens
Or three men at a table
Holding court on the end of the world
The beautiful end of the world

You’re tired, we can see it
You shake as you press the keys
You’re calling with news you can’t remember the name of
You’re calling someone you once loved
He’ll tell you to cover your flowers
But your flowers are dead, let them lie cold
You miss them but then
Death is your witness
That time is no trickster with sticky cards
Or lopsided dice or hollow head hats
Or bent pens

Bent pens!
You remember when they offered you cheese
And a free check-up
But your back was free and flexible
And cheese and you disagreed
So you smiled and thought
“Ill remember this later”
Now it’s later and do you?
Don’t nod, speak with words

Do you/will you consider this man, this death to be your witness?
Do you/will you consider this claim on all you love and used to possess?
Do you/will you consider this cloud to be your true embodiment?
Do you/will you?
I think you just did
And so all truths are evident

October 2002 - Encino, CA

5. There Are Amusement Parks, Patrick

There are amusement parks, Patrick
Where the lines are as long
As the street that winds around
The reservoir near your house
In deepest, fiercest New Jersey
But the rides, they are fun
And the nationalist sun
Shines through cotton nicely

There are Atlanta streets, Patrick
Where the traffic lights seem
Like they’re hanging from heaven
God’s up there controlling the flow
Of cars on the streets with the names
From the middle 1960s
But the left turns can get risky
God gives no arrow, you’re on your own

There are countless things, Patrick
I’ve learned from my travels
I’ve gleaned from my readings
I’ll send you a list of indexed experience
You’re a trusted friend
It’s the least and the most I can do

The Ninieties, Minneapolis

6. The Mortal

He could have been electrocuted, a proper death
He could have been affixed to boards, a Christian death
He could have been punch drunk dead, a victory
He could have choked on almonds and Christmas cookies
But he had none of that
He walked off slowly
He fell in circles
His eyes were ancient
Before they were shut
Eternally

1998, Minneapolis

7. Seasonal Affective Disorder

She’s got Seasonal Affective Disorder
She keeps the shades drawn, pretends it’s summer
She keeps busy but mostly counts the days
Until the last snow melts away

In January she reads biographies
Dead presidents and aging teen idols
In February she watches late night TV
She forgets the best jokes by morning

She’s got Seasonal Affective Disorder
She takes pills but they don’t do a thing
She shouldn’t be living in Minnesota
But the challenge is half the fun

Abraham Lincoln never wrote a will
David Cassidy wrote three
Did you hear the one about the President
Playing golf with the Partridge Family?

She never turns off the lights in her bedroom
In darkness it’s colder, and coldness is death
She’s got Seasonal Affective Disorder
That's fascinating to me

1998, Minneapolis

Dirty Brea

Dirty Brea, filthy Brea
Your streets are paved with Robert Smith
Your trees are trimmed with amethyst
Stumps forgotten, leaves gone rotten
I love you Brea, I hate you too
There is no order but there's always you

Dirty Brea, filthy Brea
Lambert is lined with broken tiles
Shattered tables for a quarter-mile
I swore I'd never go back but
Poolside, we drank the sweetened iced tea
And the carport holds the deepest memory

Dirty Brea, filthy Brea
Your mall is built on wishful thinking
Your canyon's dry for teenage drinking
Date Street swoons behind Imperial
And dead ends at that little house
The purple house, the perfect house

March 20, 2007