My pulse prayer is simple
With every inhale and exhale

Every red thrum-a-drum
Heartstrings from then and there

Move through the world with care
Be good to each other; then some

My big brother just
Called out of the blue as

Sun shown through a
Week-long grey mist and

I love the feel of blue skies but
brotherly love—far more important

I might be seen as godless but
We both believe in goodness

There is not a door
No lock or key
No password required

It's more like quicksand
You are in it before you know it
But you know the sinking

No amount of thinking
Stops the drop
It's real not rational

How low do you go?
No knowing
Not far, you hope.

I interfere?
I'm in your way?
My presence offends?
If you want to be alone,
Leave.
Don't blame me
For being me.
I live here, too.

Every moment
We can be a hero
Not without risk
Fraught with risk

But to be a hero
To do the right thing
To care about something
Without risk of reward

Every moment we choose
Nothing or everything
Toss the dice, win or lose
Toss the dice—

Spasms happen
“Hic! SHNICK! Hic…”
Gone when?

A bed asleep?
On the morrow?
Maybe Tuesday?

(Oh god, please
Not three weeks
Like that last time!)

Head back
Nose closed
Backward water

Paper bag
In out, in out
Breath control

Hot rock yoga
Pose 27-a
Release barking frog

Hopping one foot
Turning left then right
Through the night

Nope.
Lil’sips;
Quick as quick

I’m invisible

Corporeal,
Physical but

Invisible

I can’t be seen

I’ve left my mark
My scent
My ***

My words
My works

Still,
You don’t see me

If interregnum
Is how we reclaim the realm
Time is: do it now

The west coast is ablaze
A conflagration reconfiguration
Efforts heroic as forests fall
And cost of lives lost

Homes no more
Neighborhoods gone
**** and dust
Terrains reframed

The new world:
Fire cyclone zones
Hotter, drier, bigger
The culprit: us

Manage your own estate
No one else really cares

We work sometimes together
Or better yet: laugh together

We even feign interest
We might even “like!"

Then home to solo corners
Our own personal concerns

The importance of self-love:
Definitely not underrated

American
Armenian
Canadian
And Mexican

French
English
Portuguese
And then again

Latvian
Bulgarian
Czechoslovakian
From somewhereelseian

Earthlings crawling
On this speck of dust
Gravity flung around a flame
Trying to make sense of it all

Baby came to me last night
Approaching with tentative stealth
A slink around reconnoiter

First a tail **** flirt
A jump up and down
Waters tested

She paws away
But not too far
Then creeps close again

Invisible pounce
Golden eyes tête-à-tête
She’s not sure yet

Then the chin dive
Under beard comfort shown
With sandpaper tongue

I wear my hickey proudly
Baby’s reclaimed me despite
Abandonment issues

Baby came to me last night
Approaching with tentative stealth
A slink around reconnoiter

First a tail **** flirt
A jump up and down
Waters tested

She paws away
But not too far
Then creeps close again

Invisible pounce
Golden eyes tête-à-tête
She’s not sure yet

Then the chin dive
Under beard comfort shown
With sandpaper tongue

I wear my hickey proudly
Baby’s reclaimed me despite
Abandonment issues

Last first day teaching
Carrying a grief backpack
The show did go on

— — —

Human.

— — —

Concentration.

— — —

Camps.

— — —

Human:

Dominant earth species

No sub-species

— — —

Look left; look right

Who do you see?

Humans of

All sizes

All colors

All ages

All here

— — —

All endowed with

Inalienable rights

Among them

Life, liberty, happiness

Despite status

Not 3/4 human

No one illegal

All human.

— — —

Concentration.

— — —

Focus with

Deep thinking

Devising resolve

About human rights

Declared by Lady Liberty

Lifting her golden lamp

To those yearning to be free

Welcome to this shore

Huddled masses.

— — —

Camps.

— — —

Huddled masses

Yearning

Human

Children

Concentrated

Not free

— — —

Not right

Un-American

Unimaginable

Untenable

In-human

— — —

Concentration Camps.

— — —

We here now say with

Concentrated resolve

In English,

“No more!”

En español,

Decimos,

“¡No más!”

“¡Nunca más!

¡Nunca más!

¡Nunca más!”

— — —

Days, months of hot brown
Walking around here, there

I wake with a poem of home
Far from the familiar fog

Missing the mist and rain
Missing the wet and green

Full moon tonight in Oaxaca
It’s full too, in Freshwater

Don’t forget us, gatos
We will be home and wet soon

02/08/2020
Oaxaca, Mexico

It was late. The coffee was past tense with only adrenaline left.
“There!” Bernard whispered.
I lifted my night-visions.
“See it?”
“Yeah, I see it.”
“Easy.” Bernard exhorted.
I replaced the binoculars with the gun. The sight was strong enough to compensate. Moments were painfully long as my finger slowly tensed.
“Pffffift!”
It was done! Target acquired! The Carfentanil did its work and the tons of meat hit with a thud.
We jumped from the Jeep to the specimen. It was breathing.
“Good. This is one species of rhino that won’t go extinct on my watch” I grinned.

Pick the wrong apple
Displayed carefully and
All comes tumbling down

Just one impulse
Conceived in love
Turns horribly wrong

Pebbles to meteors
Craters deep
Sleep on it

I would take you with me
If you could stand my masculinity
As we stumble rumble forward

I’d take a station wagon
With the third row pop-up seats
For all the critter sitters

If there was room,
I’d cram in every mistake
To close or just review

I knew better
I’ll know better
I’ll do better

If there was room
I’d step into it
And hope you'd still love me

This room has a view
Just step through
Us, me, you too

Time travel is trouble
Slippery spillage of
Who, is, was, when…

Now, stopping time is just fine:
No need to go; chill, bro.
Take time to hear the wine.

A slipstreaming scheme
Time without and not about
Following bliss, this:

Sit. Dream. Mean.
Your ****-show will still be here tomorrow
Time to borrow.

I’m not so right sometimes
My left turns are often wrong
My pronouncements can be ludicrous
Followed by ?#%£€! fallacies

Being right is illusory
#mybubbleistheonly
I occasionally tell myself
"Shut the ?#%£€ up!”

But I still speak my mind
Come hell or high water
High water is certain
Let’s try to avoid hell

Pedro, Brenda, Alejandro
Voces Inmigrantes
Vertas, Yolanda and Richard
Brave radio show guests

Risking all to follow liberty’s call
Tremendous risks taken
For the sake of familia
Far away and years unseen

Get here, work here
Bring them all here
Seeking asylum
In the land of opportunity

My great grandfather did
I bet your grands did too
We did not then nor should we now
Build barriers, gates or walls

Native, immigrant or freed slave
Were here, came here, or forced here
Our wants for family are the same
America is great, let’s be better

I wear my collar of color but
Lately I’ve been a confessor
They trust me unknowingly
To facilitate their stories

Humbled and awed
I press record
Their lives flow courageously
They want you to know

https://www.dropbox.com/s/n3z0gn6nsogzqei/Marisol.wav?dl=0

it’s inevitable
what came before
was

I saw it a million
minutes previous
when

never happens again
but is there then
now

From “FFFWOOMF!”
To “pifffffffffpht”
Can you hear the

Cookies crumble as
Kingdoms fall; a
Causality clash

Story arc spark to
Comfortable free-fall
Happy endings to all

The letter will come
Email chimes
Doctor calls

Entropy entirely
No escape
Nobody

So, no denial
Forget delay
Love today

They spread fast
Across the blue dot
With impact to last
In the end a blot

Planet plagued
Tyrannosaurus
Age through age
The virus are us

The past passes
Frightenly fast
What you were sure was
Wanes to whatever

404: cannot be found
Format not supported
Access denied
Memory error

But we remember it
We know it was there
(I made it; it was mine)
Now just victim of time

Dusk to dust
Ashes to ask less
Things fade
Past is pastiche

Oh say can you see
Through the rocket's red glare
And the canon's loud roar
How we glorify war
Glory, gory hallelujah!

This land was their land
And now it's our land
But it's not your land
Though made by your hands

That pick our grapes and
Hang our drapes and
Landscape lawns and
Harvest prawns and
Caretake children
Carpenter homes
Clean motels
Cook and serve…

Et cetera.
¿Tu hablas español?

Be kind to our
Illegal friends
For mujer may be
somebody's mother.

I believe what I see and
Dread what is left to dream
Fearing the fog between

I am in fact a dinosaur
Clearly what has come before
An optimism fossil

Someday what is actually known
If better than the either other
Will confuse these old bones

I wanna a be
A wallaby or a

Kangaroo with
Rocket in my pocket

I wanna be
A rock star

Geode geologist
With rocks in my pocket

I wanna be a
Rocket scientist

Collecting rocks
In my solar socket

Satellite delight
Asteroid evidence

Not alone; not unique
God’s sock puppet

I want something
I feel it deep in my bones
I feel it sometimes
I think it sometimes
A hunger, a longing

Akin to anxious
An unknown known
A dispersed urge
It’s important
In concealment

Just past dusk
A whisper before dawn
It’s under my skin
Something I should do
Begin what when?

I need
I need something

I scratch at my neck
And peck at my phone

I want
I want something

Just what it is is elusive
Just below the surface

I want to scratch the itch
Answer the question

But I don’t know the now
I sit, anxious

This is my body
I pick at and scratch
To rearrange the strange

It’s an eternal assault
This war between
My skin and me

Keep napkin a
Or tissue near
There will be blood

Pick and pick and pick
Argument against free will
She says “Stop!” Can I?

You see me hide the scars
And think it strange
I’m embarrassed

I own this neurosis
While I can’t stop it
It won’t stop me

Thank you,
Black Lives Matter

Thank you
#MeToo

Thank you
Justice for Josiah

Sister Fatima

Sojourner Truth

Tina Fey

MLK

LBJ

Pete Seeger

Malcolm X

Thank you all, you
Supersheros and heroes
Of social justice

My white privileged
Pimply *** is better
Due to you

I’ll do what I can
In words and deeds
To thank you

Witless white man
in a sea of brown
without you, the
world still goes round

White bread privilege
tasty sandwich
boloney with oblivious
what wasted bandwidth

I yearn for post-racial
i own unconscious bias
“Gorbachev, tear down that wall!”
better world built by us

We all need sol’s fast bright photons
To feed our planet’s green plant protons
And with its chlorophyll
There’s a way we know it will
Release some electrons
Sugar-making depends on.

Ruminate on ruminants—
Green grass consuminants.
Dairy, beef concluded on
Solar sugar chewed upon.
Sun, sugar, solar food.
A photon’s single goal pursued.

I may be mostly vegetarian,
A non-mammalian true contrarian;
I don’t eat beef
But love the leaf!
3.00×108 m/s
Lights our life, free and fecund!

I want wake up in a better world
Where hate is no longer on the slate

I want to wake up in a better world
Where migrant caravans aren’t criminalized

I want to wake up in a better world
With less human deaths by guns

I want to wake up in a better world
Without blue states or red states

I want to wake up in a better world
Where my vote counted to make a better world

Everyone in this room
Came from a unique womb;
A mother to another—

As we intersect
We’ve laughed, shrugged
Shared stories…

The bond common
Place and time summoned
We reconnect

If you had fun, I won!
Complete ___  to compete;
Prance!

Thank you all!

It plays to pay it forward
Good deeds sung

It takes little to complement
Dividends that multiply

Causal or catalyst?
Only results matter

In the typical male *******
Live 250 million half-lifes
Each a potential human being

Every ***** is sacred
******* is ******-light
Every man masterbates

Even 25 old white Alabamans
Who whank their shanks at least
Once a week for 50 years

Time for math:
25 senators
55 years

72,000 shank whanks
(an underestimate)
1.79e13 potential people

Dried on tissue
Flushed away or
Down another senator's throat

Criminal!
Put them away!
For 8e14 years!

Constipation consideration
Free flow of **** and that

Unpleasant unflow is
Sometimes how it goes

Pootting **** pebbles
Indicates trouble

Finally, release cleanser as
Movement sends her

"I’d like to buy a bowel, Alex”
“Guts get graphic” for 20…



— apologizes to my niece; and thanks

What is not not true is not unnecessarily untrue—
Usually.
What’s actual?
It’s all possible
While not all probable.

Just ask Mr. Spock.

Tuesday, November 29, 2016,
living room, Freshwater.
4:12 AM: I woke like any other morning
which means my eyes opened
my voluntary muscular system switched on.
This time.
Slowly.

But it wasn't like any other morning.
I woke up in the living room,
lying on the floor
next to Gunther, my dog.
He's not doing well.
He's old
and I spent the night with him.
Mostly.

5:24 AM: Woke up again next to Gunther,
cold and sore after disappointing moist dream;
went upstairs to bed for another 165 minutes.
Whatever 165 minutes later is:

Woke up, got out of bed,
dragged a comb across my head.
Somebody spoke and I went into a dream.

7:12 AM: Drove to work
knowing how many holes you need
to fill the Albert Hall:
12,347,023. Plus or minus.

8:47 AM: during my morning constitutional,
I noticed:
Catastrophic Trouser Failure.
Colleague saw me leave the
East Genderless Restroom
in the basement of House 54 at
8:53 AM with stapler in hand.

I moved cautiously through my day
not wanting to rip my metallic stitches.

9:12 AM: Over the last 7 1/2 minutes
I have flicked 17 ants off the top of my desk.

2:40 PM: After carefully maneuvering around campus
and getting through my day without exposure,
it was time to go home—but not quite yet.
The file uploaded that my students needed NOW
was corrupted and inaccessible.

Workarounds ensued.
Another day at the office.

3:54 PM: The black army has arrived.
My desk is aswarm—
anticipating their conquest—
my desk has fallen.

4:47 PM: Arrived at home.
Used PBS to relax.

9:03 PM: Moved on to Brandy.

Better.

A graceful pirouette towards death
With each and every waking breath
The ****** dance of being alive

The stank of floral perfumes
As memories expand and fade
Exotic as cinnamon and jade

We create and extinguish realms
Thinking we’re at the helm with
Joyous and dire exultation

Walking up the spiral trail
All below us is known
Above, oblivious bliss

Rim shoot
Overshot on the
Carousel of time

802,702 A.B.C.
Time Safari Inc.
Jumping multiverses

Check. And check.
Could’t happen here…
President Deutscher?

We've stepped off the path
Time to jump back on and
Reclaim our future

After the reign of rain
And five years of drought and doubt
The fecund world is green again
With sugar packets growing

Plums aplenty on trees one and two
Cherries and blueberries ripen apace
Late blooming apples
Three varieties, small as olives

Festoon trees one to four
Grapes, clusters of little green B-Bs
Promise wines, jams and galletes
A feast after famine

Best yet, peaches!
Only one last dry year
Now, dozens upon dozens
Fatten in the June sun

Did she really mean that?
What was that snarky smirk?
What the **** does that mean?
I can’t believe he just said that!
Does that mean that…

Here’s a chill pill
Don’t think the worse
Get over your brain strain
Move on to restrain
Here’s a new refrain

Surprise: more than you
No one aspires to conspire
Antagonists might be protagonists
Think better of everyone
Beatles: “All you need is…”

The walls implode
The ceiling falls
The floor is no more

This is the new new
Not what we’ve known
That ship has flown

Adapt, adopt, improve
I always say; save it
For another day

BAM!
The cudgel descends

RIP!
The bandage off

****!
Old wounds can fester

POW!
Kicked while down

WOW!
Past is present again

GET UP
Brush it off
Mend your wall
Stand tall and
Walk away