Far Away From Polk Street

soft hair and hair gel
fuzzy sweater sanguine
sweater sad and selfless
they glide and glide and fall
but not too soon

upright and right now
gray brick wall break free
brick wall stained and star-struck
they fell and now they hurt
but not too much

gone to San Francisco
gone to walls and flowers
ivy and the end notes
staying on, fading out
just long enough

wool hats and hat hair
black scarves out of attics
black scarves sold a fortune
on falling and hurting
and now they’re gone away
to San Francisco

January 5, 1999

Milfwaukee

The trains were loud
The people were coughing
The city was waking
In time for sunset

The parking was rough
My head was pounding
The gerunds flew by
Like oxidized remnants
Of a decade on hold

This is what it sounded like
(Silence, white noise)
This is what it felt like
(Textures, rough patch)
This is what it looked like
(Girls in circles, white lights)
It's all I can do
To remember falsely

The city returned
To its sleeping weeping state
I should have gone home
I would have been happy

But I stayed 'til the end
The echoey blather
Rang in my head
As I drove west with the moon
And listened to The Life Pursuit

October 10, 2007

They All End Up In Glendale

They all end up in Glendale
Where the land meets the higher land
The first one came there with her mother
Their dream home, a small apartment
Two bedrooms and concrete steps
She left, she's on an island now

The next one, it looked like it couldn't end
But it did and now she's in Glendale
With more concrete and more desires
Silent in their immensity
Immense in their clutter

The third one, she's an anomaly
It didn't last enough to count
But I liked four more than three
So in Glendale, she sleeps
Ever the pessimist, she's the happiest one

They all end up in Glendale
The fourth one shouldn't count, she's in Eagle Rock
Which is just down the street, so I'll make an exception
She should have waited
It was a bad week

July 13, 2007

Hat

I put on my glasses
I don't wear a hat
I won't wear a hat
Back at world's end, I wore green
Slept on a green bed, with green and white sheets
I'd take it to the suffering streets
Nodded in that direction
Cringed at the fault lines on every sidewalk
It didn't matter
I didn't live there yet
Or ever

June 16, 2007

Late July

They closed the bookstore up the street from where I lived
They gutted its housing, kept the barbecue place
They, I don't know who they are
But the bridge fell into the river
I didn't love that bridge, didn't hate it
But I love the river
I prefer the east side of it
Mainly the land close to the water
You get too far, you get too close

I was surprised she had so much to say
In the kitchen, at the party
There are so many songs I remember more
So many books I understand better
Than her and her odd stuttered manner
But it was good to see her, it had to be done

I may never go back again
I could live there tomorrow
I hear sad news from there
I miss the good times
I miss the escalator
Up from where the dead bookstore used to be
To the old gutted restaurant
That hasn't been there since 1991
When the girl said
"He sings about rainbows and dreamers like me"
She was talking about Dio
There's a bridge falling down
A riot going on
And I haven't slept so well
As that night on 43rd Avenue

August 4, 2007

Ringing In My Ears

There was ringing in my ears
As I came down the canyon
As I crashed thought the city
It was a song about a system
Let him run wild
Yesterday, today
Let him run down
Until he puts every box in its place

I left Milwaukee with enough cash
To pay the tolls back to Chicago
I drove, dreaming of the words
I could write to Summer Guest
I thought of 18 years before
Walking through the forest in Fridley, Minnesota
Writing movies, pornographic poems
Imagining shipwrecks, leading the way

I travel
I write in threes - verses, thoughts, plans
I wander in two of four time zones
In a dozen area codes
In the shadow of the valley
That falls, twinkling, from Los Angeles
I know where the curves are
Even if I haven't taken that freeway
All that often
Since that cold sweat January day

August 4, 2007

The Music

I listened to the music
Because it was written: That is where the answers are
I found them, some of them
Like the heart is bottomless
But the will can end
And in the country darkness
You can call your friends
They can answer without wanting to
Or ignore you with regret

I didn't know
That the pain in their voices was uncommon
I thought I'd get that way
If I waited it out
But my words came out deeper
And my longings, stuck on paper
Were the strongest

I listened to all the music
Because I could hear it
The sugar, the venom
The south central rain
The love and the heartbreak
The not getting fooled again
But we all do
We're prophets, we're ancients
We got there from here
We'll do it again

August 4, 2007