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 Jun 2016 Chris Terra
Jeff Stier
He's a small black man
from Baltimore County
brings the witching hour
always craves a meal
or two.
Thomas.
Treads like Neruda's doves
on slippered feet.
Flicks his tail
and tales are told
the galaxies turn
Baltimore disappears
in the rear view mirror.

My man
my dark sprite
of hunger and thirst
first and best
Cat.
It's a love poem for a cat, isn't it?
Lucid dreaming is the doorway
        to the unconscious.
So dream.
Do not stay closed
        behind cement barricades
        blocking the moon
        from shining.
Live.
Each second is for you.
The tumbling of life
         does not promise
            anything.
In one breath
you can have
        a time table
        handed to you.
A distinct framework
        of how much
        longer you shall be.
Stay in illusion.
Keep in mind
that very little
is worthy of
being screamed about.
Politics
        and
people games
        are not
         the substance
        of existing.
Picture colourful images
         that flutter
          playfully
            across the
           mental horizon.
A traffic light
      will
       blink
red, yellow, green.
A noise
        will dominate
         the shading sky.
These mean nothing.
Moments of distraction
        soon
         gone away.
Focus on fantasy.
Allow yourself
the freedom to
         celebrate
        the essence
        of harmony.
When you die,
       it will be
         your dreams
         that are
          remembered.
Breathe.
It's just
      a bad day,
      not a bad life.
 May 2016 Chris Terra
r
I used to stay up all night
driving through pastures
in a sweetheart's daddy's jeep

I remember the moon in the woods
through the trees like a girl
running in white *******

Like a boat losing its shadow
to the wind, you can lie
yourself back into bodies
you never touched

What love there was
flashes by like chrome
on a fender skirt.
 May 2016 Chris Terra
MS Lim
This is the tapestry of my soul
sewed in  sweat, trials and tears
each stitch a reminder of the vanished past when every episode
stood as a testament of life's most tempestuous years

but  I've resurrected from the ruins
of time and every scene I survey  now with serenity
even in the darkest of night
the brightest of light illuminates from my treasured tapestry.
* inspired by the preamble of Jane Taylor Hardy, a fellow-writer in HP--
many thanks, Jane
 May 2016 Chris Terra
Jeff Stier
Tell me what's going on
in your life, my friend.
Did you tickle the belly of the moon
last night?
Lie down in the lair
of spiders?
Or did a sweet wind
take your mind,
transform it into ripples
across the pond
radiating outward?
Or perchance electricity and the sweet scent of ozone?
Or a tiny flower called
"Nevermore"?

Me
I chose to dig a cave
beneath my anxieties
taste something resembling Life,
in congested dreams,

All for a moment of quiet
and the hint of a new poem.
I've been writing poetry on my Iphone - bad idea, perhaps.  Somehow deleted this poem and had to reconstruct it from memory and some notes.

Thanks to my wife for an important edit!
 May 2016 Chris Terra
Sjr1000
She's texting me from
old L.A.
Heading north on the El Camino Real
driving fast on 101

I'm heading west
from Paradise, Nevada
No work here
It's all shut down

Driving through
Susanville
Hat Creek
Shingletown
Redding
Across the burning Trinity Alps
the river sure is beautiful
My heart is soaring,
just missed that landslide
late last night

Meeting my life in Humboldt County

She, from the South
Me, from the East
We cross that
Redwood Curtain
Right into the heart of the Emerald Triangle

Meeting my true love in Humboldt County

They say the streets
are lined with
green gold

The family "grows,"
up in the hills
where everyone is welcome
to trim scene solutions,
the emerald gardens
with trees six feet high
Glistening buds as big as your fist,
Everyone is smiling
Everyone is high
sure I may reek
of that Marijuana resin
but two hundred dollars a day
flirting all the way
all I can eat
all I can ****
sounds a lot like heaven to me.

I'll be getting that 215
growing plants
as far as the eye can see
Another millennium
with back problems, insomnia and anxiety.
My fortune is just waiting for me.

Meeting my sweet love in Humboldt County

Like an old Woody Guthrie tune
you ain't gonna find nothing
without that dough re me

There ain't no doubt
that ****, so pure
will get you so high
you'll be wishing your still alive
No matter how high you get
There will still be reality.

Gotta get out of this indoor grow
Black mold growing up the walls
The floors are buckling
The ceiling too
The electrical is sparking
Another landlord on the hook
What's a boy to do?

The methamphetamine
The ****** machine
Trying not to blow my face off
with a butane tank
making that concentrated cannabis

Cold and wet
sleeping bag soaked on the beach,
A tent in the Devil's Playground
the  homeless encampment
behind the Bayshore Mall
that's what I met
and don't leave your ****,
It'll be gone in a quick minute.

The gardens are beautiful
good chance I'll never see 'em
The man with the ball cap
The big *** truck
holding a shot gun
"Better move on, son,
No trespassing here. "

I'm just
another dread locked kid
on the Arcata Plaza
with a dog I can't take care of

Down in Eureka
on concrete Broadway
Fourth Street
Fifth Street
Old Town
Where the fights break out
The cops they have no patience
Another Drunk in Public
drunk tank
Back on those same streets
at one a.m.

Get too crazy
5150 for an overnight stay,
second floor in County Mental Health,
walls closing in,
Psychiatrist says
"We ain't got nothing for ya,
good luck out there. "

Meeting my sweet love in Humboldt County

Once here
there is no way out
Panhandlers
Hitchhikers
on every corner
No one's giving out
No one's picking up

I'm gonna need my family
to send that Moneygram
Get me on a Greyhound Bus
haven't heard a word from them yet.

Even the police say
No one's gonna accept me,
So they ain't gonna pay.

I've been
Trying to leave a message
for my sweet love,
haven't seen her for a month,
She headed up to Trinidad
with a would be spiritual monk

The Redwoods spiral to the skies
The ranchers own the green
pastured hills
The beaches are vast and empty
The ocean is wilderness wild
waiting for the tsunami
turn your back on the ocean
you may fall in
many have fallen
few survive
on the most exquisite
blue sky day
you've ever seen.

Meeting my true love in Humboldt County.
Inspired by Bruce Springsteen's Atlantic City.
For r who told me to write this a couple of years ago. I should add that Humboldt County is considered the Marijuana capital of the U.S., lures many young kids thinking their going to find riches and nirvana.
 May 2016 Chris Terra
Rina Vana
We’d meet up in the bridge of the night
on Monahan road where no streetlights survived at all,
where your
car would impatiently grumble as
I scurried out of the laundry room window

My bare feet kissed the cold concrete briefly before
I threw myself into the warmth of your old Honda,
attaching my body to yours like it belonged to you

The raccoons would come out to greet us because they
heard the sheer ripping of my cotton dress
into pieces between your palms and the rough grip of flesh which
held my flexing neck

Pearls of sweat accumulated once
I tore the shirt off of your back
My loving lips bit by your tough teeth and
I crumbled into your mouth like warm cake,
cuffing your face to the
irresistible urge to lick the plate
clean
windows once were the last moment I noticed but,
you dug your nails into my muscles like I deserved it
across the foggy surface of my skin as if we were lions leaving
chilled bumps and the marks of midnight
scarred in my mind for a minute

Fluttering lids lick this fleeting daydream
that I can’t seem to catch with
my bare authentic hands
Hands no longer tan,
Nor connected to the center
of your plans
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