He’s come to ancient plains, again.
Wide and open, high and dry.
Unrolling before his misting eyes,
He feels the tug of ancient ties -
A primeval sorrow,
His gut rarely lies.

Breathing the landscape in ...
He imagines America,
Before settlers arrived;
A life under
Different skies.
Oh, how they tried
To disguise
Their insatiable eyes.

Twisted, and tainted,
By treatises and lies,
Used for desire,
And profit designs;
Parceling the land,
That sour reprise.

But beneath
The ringing cries,
Of culture broken,
And shattered lives,
A wisp of her soul resides;

In stories told,
And countryside.
Places where nature
Remains untried,
And no realtors
Have thought to subdivide.

Outside,
It’s another crisp,
September day.
Afraid to trust you say,
So both our steps
Are cautious, guided.
Still, it’s in the little gestures,
The intimate silences,
That I can see
(We could be care-free).

Remember when we
Cupped our ears to
That crowned shell?
We heard different things.
You heard the ocean breeze,
I heard the sea.

And I guess that I’m caught
Between the physical trappings
Of your moon, and its
Gravitational pull.
So I swim:
Under your sleeves,
Inside your jeans.

In and out, with the tide,
We continue to sway.
Dazing away this lazy
Sunday afternoon
Between the sheets.

Gently, I pull my left arm,
Which is wrapped
Around the elegant,
Dark curls of your hair,
And move you closer -
Hoping to ensure
More secure Z’s.

With your sleeping head
Upon my chest, and the steady
Rise and fall of your breath,
Your sleeping beauty
Radiates trust, and volumes
Of a colorful world, eclipsed
By the shadows surrounding
Your waking words.

“Can you move over a little, please?”

You didn’t seem to notice my adjustment,
And something about this minor detail
Shakes my mind from its lethargic ease.
After a minute or two, you’re back to sleep.

And I begin to imagine -
What thoughts are drifting around in
The gray areas of your resting head?

I’m sitting above some soil,
Is this my backyard?
No, my neighborhood is
Many miles from here.
Scores of sounds
Jump down
At different decibels
To my excited ears.
A Mexican Sun bronzes arms,
And the sky continues to stay clear.

Am I grateful for the sky?
I am grateful for the sky.

Trees plus breeze
Equals a faint whisper
Amid muggy heat.
I wish I could translate each leaf,
For the forest keeps
A language of her own.

I would like to leave my mark on this earth -
More lastingly than the Red River Maple tree,
Who leaves only a passing shadow on the ground.
And as some twisted Acacias talk about how
Long they’ve been around, I’m not so naïve,
So their noise dies down.

Just long enough
To hear my thoughts
Echo, and echo,
And stop somewhere.

Sweat beads drip down
Onto a parched porch.
Soon, the moisture is gone,
And a taciturn timber terrace
Smiles as if to say;
“I am the Sahara. I am dry.”

Shifting my gaze
Back to nature,
I center my senses,
On these different woods,
Which breathe without fences.
A gray catbird picks away at the ground,
Searching for some nourishment.

An Inca Dove ***** by noisily,
For stealth has never been his game.
A cardinal flits across the landscape,
Not staying long enough for me
To fully appreciate his crimson splendor.

A motor car rumbles by,
But soon the forest’s natural
Symphony drowns that sound.
A strand of a spider’s web
Drifts by, stealing my eyes,
For moments.

Signs of spring, of summer, of September,
Live in this place. I wonder if
My yard is blooming, too.

All the way to Zion,
She hung from the
Tip of my tongue.

She was the right song,
At the right time. That’s
What I hoped, at least.

I loved her accompaniment;
The kind that was as fine
As a San Francisco sunset.

She invited me to eat dinner,
And I said, “Yes, of course.”
Because I had never been
To her place before.

She said she lived somewhere
Off the North Juda Line.
We agreed to meet
After work, at half past seven,
Outside of the Market
Street subway stop.

I knew that I didn’t have
Much time to waste.
She was the type to leave
If I was late.

Sure enough,
By the end of the day,
I got delayed. I was still
In the office at eight.
I called her twice,
But she didn’t wait.

I tried to catch her
At the next stop,
But my feet were slow -
So there I was again, caught.

I knew the perfect song
To sing to Celia,
I was just late
On the chorus.

Free to amble because of
My missed commitment,
I walked further down
The Embarcadero,
Until I heard some Cuban dudes
Playing a familiar old song
In the SBC Park, just below Pier 38.

I recognized it immediately -
Such a beautifully simple melody:

Yo soy un hombre sincero, de donde crece la palma
Yo soy un hombre sincero, de donde crece la palma
Y antes de morir yo quiero cantar mis versos del alma.

The funny thing is, for a while,
I forgot about everything.
I sat on that bench, and listened.
The song had that old wisdom to it,
Something that you can’t really explain,
You just feel.

Eventually, I decided to
Walk out onto the pier.
I got to thinking
About Celia again,
How mad she must have been -
Send in the clowns.

And just as I
Started to sink -
You know, really feel
Bad for myself,
Someone tapped me
On the shoulder.

I turned to face
The unsuspecting person,
To let them know that
It was the wrong day,
And I was the wrong guy
To be asking for directions…

And there she was,
Right in front of me.
“Take my hand,”
Celia quietly said,
As the lights on the pier
Danced to the sweetness
Of her voice in my ears.
I laughed. She laughed.
And there we were -
A little bit lost together.

Far down the line
But my skin will stay café
The dark side of a lunar moon
Casts shadows upon my face
But the light shines down and diffuses
A fusion that I embrace
I look back at time
I look back at space
The line I walk
I’ll keep my pace
My ears preserve
To speak with grace
And make some sense
Of muddled race
Sharp is my tone
And so I brace
For those who cry
“You have no place”
I’m springing forth
From ancestral base
An intricate weave
Of familial lace
From within my core
Beats resonate
My soul resounds
Like deep, rich bass
A load I can carry
But tedious weight
My calm brown hair
I’ll never hate
With open arms
Receive my fate
I wish I could aid my earlier brethren
Slaving away on that Southern estate
I am not done…
Will I be too late?

Watch Bush.
Watch him push,
Metropolitan moods
Farther towards
The Atlantic and Pacific.
What issue was the key?
Gay marriage to be specific.
Forget our foreign policy,
Although the future looks horrific.
Ask all our allied countries,
Our president’s terr(or)ific.

He’s watching our country’s back.
(A side note: Reasoning for attack;
Some big weapons in Iraq).
This war is justified,
Our government’s convinced of that.
But waging full-out war
On a country and all its people,
Where only terrorists act?

If my sail has gone downwind,
Please advise me to tack.
But I strongly believe,
Our reasoning’s that wack.
I wish our president had the nerve
To bring our soldiers back.

It was a brilliant diversionary tact,
And advisors guessed well on how
The United States would react.
Bring fear and resources to the forefront, while hiding the facts
And legislatures and voters have a worthwhile contract.

So while I’m sitting here, still trying to figure out
Why we can’t implement more help in Somalia or the Sudan
Our leader has emerged on the world’s stage again,
Yelling “Can I get encore, do you want more?”
And ethics continue to slide off track,
While our diplomatic virtue fades to black.

Bush Jr. won the election “fairly,”
It’s clear for all to see.
But it’s sad to watch how easily
Politicians, Fortune 500 companies, and lobbyists
Have learned to exploit our Democracy.
An adept political machine,
Our government has no trouble raising the green
For our defense budgets and campaign schemes.

And it seems we forgotten about
Rescuing underfunded education,
How our country hurts collectively as a nation.
Left most of New Orleans’ poor and down-trodden
To the heroic efforts of local police, the coastguard and firemen
(At least those who weren’t part of the 1300
Which the water levels reached higher than).
And it makes me wonder,
Like 7 years ago, on the 11th day,
In the ninth month of our calendar year:
Through the wake of another major
Catastrophe and time of tears,
Did we miss the lesson, again?

See, we’ve made it a routine
To apologize after the fact -
One overzealous scream,
And the media makes
A joke of a good candidate,
Sorry, Howard Dean.
John Kerry’s record,
“Too sparkling clean.”
But accusing ANY politician of flip flopping
On the world’s political matters,
I hardly call that keen.
“We” had many grounds
For initially invading Iraq,
But to this day, have any been gleaned?
Our President lost 90-9,
In Washington D.C.

The President Elect
For 365 more.
In fact 365,
365 times four.
And with a majority in senate,
A “mandate” (a.k.a. a wide open door).

Time to get some things changed.
Instead of patching up wounds,
Of countries estranged,
With all the ambiguity of the election,
And the issues that ranged,
One thing is certain -
The President reigns.
Under the heat of the world’s glare,
Our burning Bush remains.

First some dots,
Then some roads
That form a knot.
I watch above
A lush green spot,
A modest farmer’s plot.

When seatbelts click,
I feel the drop.
My stomach sinks,
Completely fraught,
From the futile battle
With luke-warm Fresca,
My bursting bladder
Is quite distraught.

We go down,
Then there’s a stop,
Through a gust of air
That is hot, we walk.
With movements like, a robot.
We take wing again,
And turn back the clock.
My headache is gone,
But my ears have popped,

This is a red-eye plane.