good weather
is like
good women-
it doesn't always happen
and when it does
it doesn't
always last.
man is
more stable:
if he's bad
there's more chance
he'll stay that way,
or if he's good
he might hang
on,
but a woman
is changed
by
children
age
diet
conversation
***
the moon
the absence or
presence of sun
or good times.
a woman must be nursed
into subsistence
by love
where a man can become
stronger
by being hated.
I am drinking tonight in Spangler's Bar
and I remember the cows
I once painted in Art class
and they looked good
they looked better than anything
in here. I am drinking in Spangler's Bar
wondering which to love and which
to hate, but the rules are gone:
I love and hate only
myself-
they stand outside me
like an orange dropped from the table
and rolling away; it's what I've got to
decide:
**** myself or
love myself?
which is the treason?
where's the information
coming from?
books...like broken glass:
I wouldn't wipe my *** with 'em
yet, it's getting
darker, see?
(we drink here and speak to
each other and
seem knowing.)
buy the cow with the biggest
****
buy the cow with the biggest
****.
present arms.
the bartender slides me a beer
it runs down the bar
like an Olympic sprinter
and the pair of pliers that is my hand
stops it, lifts it,
golden **** of dull temptation,
I drink and
stand there
the weather bad for cows
but my brush is ready
to stroke up
the green grass straw eye
sadness takes me all over
and I drink the beer straight down
order a shot
fast
to give me the guts and the love to
go
on.
from "poems written before jumping out of an 8 story window" - 1966

I met a genius on the train
today
about 6 years old,
he sat beside me
and as the train
ran down along the coast
we came to the ocean
and then he looked at me
and said,
it's not pretty.

it was the first time I'd
realized
that.

she writes of the falling days
- knows them well, one can tell

simple things like string
and wrappings
autumn and swallows -
hollow places she has seen
in boxes and photographs

and so it is -  the falling days
the number of birds at my feeder are fewer
no more humming, no painted buntings
-only my homies come now, my vato birds, my mijas

the cardinal, both red and green
the nuthatch and chickadee, the titmouse-
all three
the wrens and finches, too-

and the blues still like to bathe
in the pyrex baking dish sun warmed
on a sunny day-serenaded by the mocking
one hopping from grub to worm below

- my usual feathered friends
not caring about the weather-fair or foul
and in the pale blue, a gull still laughs
at the folly of it all-

leaving goes slowly-
a spiraling, a gust of wind-
days slowly graying
shorter, lightly fading
- friends, they go

the falling days, change and leavings
leave me - well, you know...

i see the simple things
that soothe, like string
and wrappings, swallows -

- autumn, you know?

r ~ 10/6/14

shadow man-

measuring my span-
born(e) in the space between
heart beats and the unforseen

hiding on the periphery
of  crow's feet and defeat
-the shadowy me

snickering peripheral(ly)
i got yo numba-
boy.

r ~ 10/9/14

Otis told me about this cool
brand new swanky dance hall place,
said it was full of pretty-lookers
with baby doll faces
not the sleazebag rough
******-types, the scary kind.
So I pulled on my best blue jeans,
scooped on a little dab of gel and
checked myself out in the mirror.
I thought, man you look swell,
somebody might say, you're fine
and with those thoughts,
I stepped out
headed on down to the party club,
hoping someone would notice me, too.

I walked on over to the servery,
to sample some dip and savories,
out of the corner of my eye
I saw a pretty little babe,
she sashayed across the dance hall,
to make herself known to me.
In an instant, there was electricity,
we got to talking about how nice,
it would be, to get together
more regularly.
I knew there and then,
we were going to be real close friends,
she oozed class and she had me rapt,
my heart beat climbed high,
like, I'd scored a drop dead gorgeous
piece of sugar pie.
I thought yeah!
She'd be the ideal girl for me.

And she would be,
if she could dance the Watusi
she'd be fine with me.
Well, I'm not one
to beat around the bush,
I cut to the quick,
so I sauntered right up to her
and in my smoothest Southern drawl
asked the lil' darling,
"Sweet Darling would you like
a cup of Chardonnay?"
And she, in the most playful way,
smiled coyly and replied,
"Why Mister, surely I would,
I can't resist a fine wine!"

As we sipped on the wine,
there was a warming glow
between us two, we were starting
to cog, like in sync watches.
I thought to myself, I can play
a part, in her every dream,
my lil' darling and I dancing,
to the beat of a lava stream.
We took to the dance hall floor,
expressing our close body simmer,
the Watusi sounds,
had us all a glimmer.

Then we pulled closer,
the gravity was electric,
a sacred feeling,
I could feel between my hips
and she,
she had a primordial fragrance,
I could smell beneath her
fashionable clothes.
Reasonableness was fading
quickly with the pace,
I held her face
and we fell
into another dimension.

A flow of passion ignited,
there was no containing,
the flare,
our lips burnt with an excited
and intoxicating fervor,
our skin to skin contact,
was like an ember.
Eros, had my sugar pie and I
in mind,
when he wrote the script,
to the sensual Watusi bind.