Gotama was unlicensed
went to graduate school
in caves along wide rivers
eating one grain of rice a day
seeking the happy place
where great beasts live
and tall ships anchor firm
on still waters.

Christ laughed at thin laws
refusing to be defined
poured glowing love
all over the Pharisees
and that’s why
it is so sad
some therapsts
forget about the soul
spewing insurable diagnoses
for imaginary pathologies
ignoring the rare pearls
of each heart
logged into their tight sad files.

Rumi cut a lovely poem
into his thigh with a dagger
and loved when people read it . . .
so honor that sacrifice
and never
insult your days
by depending on those
who invent litanies of sadness
looking for broken places  
in your psyche.

When the counselor asks for his fee
reach inside your chest
pull out your heart
hold it before him
say nothing.

She stands in the kitchen
slicing vegetables again
gazing wistfully
through memory's window
to a sharp winter day
with that sweet carefree man
when they walked the seashore
haloed by salt breeze
clinging to each another
laughing at the gale
promising everything
always and forever
but like every night
her reverie fades
no talk of love, no seashore
no crisp air, no calling gulls
just the smell of roast beef
and the droning voice
of the man she settled for
igniting once again
a deep sad rumbling
from her heart’s basket
of buried dreams
as the house begins to shake
and kitchen floor cracks open
its hungry maw gaping
swallowing her whole
helpless in an avalanche
of potatoes and paring knives
with sharp edges
like the teeth
of her resignation.

Her transition ritual
between lovers
a masterpiece of denial
took at most
a week
before the rebuke
about what a ****
he was
and how dumb
the other was
and let me cook
the way to a man’s heart
always the stomach
until one man
an older wiser sort
told her
I don’t like potatoes
and you’re too cruel
I am afraid of you
and will not
be staying
for dinner.

Santa Claus is 100% pure love
his heart does not divide
the starved and homeless man with his tin cup
from the wealthy politician in his black limousine

nor does Santa ever blame
the frightened small town girl
who paints her lips and struts unsure
down hard dark streets

Santa Claus remembers his own mother
and weeps for the lonely karma of octogenarians
diapered in wheelchairs along fluorescent hallways
abandoned by the ones they birthed

our great elf winces every time
he feels the crocodile's fearsome jaws
drag the wildebeest down
while the zebras flee

he prays relentless sailors
stop harpooning the great breaching whales
and hears the grasses scream
when bloated oilmen pound holes
in the prairie dog's kingdom

he regrets that schoolteachers lie
about what a great man Columbus was
and why the Sioux, the Apache and the Arapahoe
were incapable of evolution

he knows you don't need a bicycle helmet
to ride downtown for ice cream
knows our legal system is for sale
knows surfing is Neptune's brave ballet

Santa delights in the spiritual joy emerging
when patients see angels hovering everywhere
before doctors scream psychosis
and numb what they do not understand
with sad needles and leather restraints

his reindeer are the dreams of the spastic child
who knows he will never run
his sleigh a zero carbon emission vehicle
and his great heavy bag carries
the sweet prayers of the Jew, the Christian
the Muslim, the Buddhist, the Hindu
the Gnostic, the Wiccan and the existential humanist

on the night before Christmas
Santa dreams that all the cars and trucks disappear
and every freeway grows trees and flowers and grass
where everyone chats and meanders and strolls
and vendors sell SnoCones, apple juice and pears

because Santa Claus is just doing
the one thing he knows how to do best
on a long winter's night
to bring some light to a world
that races toward extinction
while the butterfly sleeps with the lizard
and the children still believe

In the next place
Everything's there
That isn't here
Like  free flowers
On every street corner
And little shops
Where everyone is forgiven.

In the next place
Nobody feels alone
Because everybody's heart
Beats at exactly
The same time
And the rhythm
Fills the air.

In the next place
The sun rises
Twice a day
And the espresso man
Stops at every house
So even sleepy heads
Are sure to marvel
At the light rose sky.

In the next place
There's a depot
Where all the people
Who were lonely before
Arrive to throngs
Welcoming them
With hugs
Singing hallelujah.

In the next place
The new people
Get so much love
They forget
To be afraid
And finally understand
That in the old place
Nothing had to be
The way it was.

My man-o'-war lies anchored 
silent after crossing endless seas
as I stand on the gangway
bathed in midday heat.
The olive trees on the hillsides
grown ten times taller 
since I left you here
to seek my worth
in battles with strangers.

Heavy coats of chainmail
have worn maps into my shoulders
those engines of the trickster's axe.
Though no man or beast has won me
not a queen I have not taken from her king
I still fear to stand before you 
unarmored and vulnerable
before your patient inexorable love.

Your pure love 
is my greatest adversary
yet you carry no sword.
You challenge me everywhere
yet you sail no ocean.
You know I am weary
yet you do not mock.
You have simply waited
for my hard road to end.

My heart stops
in mute surrender
as I lift off the last battered chest plate,
undo the sterling braces from my legs
steel falling like glass
around the pirate's helmet
tarnished at my feet.


Though a lifetime of war
has crippled my gait
I run with reckless abandon
to that open door 
on the welcome street
the place I left
for no good reason
where you have endured all these years
holding the only blade 
that can sever
the lover from the rogue.

My love says she likes me
because I'm such a great deipnosophist,
a sanguine fellow
whose susurrus musings
crepitate with a farrago of meanings,
a  protean and hortatory munificence
that brings her to her knees
in delight.

I adore her as well
for the beatific rapprochement
she accedes to
even when we expatiate
on and on about things mercurial.

Yes, I will always adore
her lissome acquiescence
to the inexorable germanity
of the simple fact
that we're simply
head over heels
for each other,
if you know
what I'm trying to say.

I found you yet again
Dipping water from a well
In a small village square
Your face covered as was custom
And knowing you instantly
I took your hand
You showed no surprise
Just knew me
As the son you bore
In a tropical clime
On a world so distant
You could remember only
The rustle of crystal wind
Through tall red trees
Under a blue sun
Where you smiled
Knowing this was another life
One more time together
For our souls to learn
Some loves never end
But seek new bodies
In new places
And we always get excited
Rush to each other
Passionate and so surprised
Until we remember why.

He reaches for the other pillow
but finds no head resting there
looking pretty
ready to kiss
and he feels bad.

She awakens from dreams of him
but there are no arms
reaching out for her
just the rumpled sheets
that witness only sleep.

Each heart breaks sometimes
remembering the precious few moments
when they could embrace
like normal people
and they cry.

And they both keep weeping
feeling so sad and heavy
with anger at the situation
at the other
for not trying harder
to be there.

He ruminates about how
she never does talk about
where she wants to put her piano
and she complains to herself
because he no longer counts
the days until their next encounter
and has so little to say
on the phone.

Each one is obsessed
with worrying about the other
and neither takes
the time to wonder
if the distant partner
also feels the sting
of the empty pillow.

After the argument
all he could do
was slump down
in the old chair
near the window
that looks out
onto the wide garden
beside the lake.

He yelled louder
as usual
dominated and gesticulated
but has paid
the same dear price
as she trembles
hidden behind
the soft pillows
she hoped
would cradle
words of love.

Every time she asks
please love me
a little slower
this time
he hears criticism
flying into a rage
panicking to realize
he does not know how
to do anything
but clutch at her
with the harsh hands
of a frightened man
who cannot hear
cannot see
and cannot believe
she loves him
at all.

.

Maybe today
that cute guy
from downstairs in #6
the quiet one
who winks
will helpcarry
my heavy grocery bags
up the stairs
put them on the counter
ask me of I need help
with any other chores.

I've never heard
a voice like his
the lilt and timbre
or the graceful strength
of his lion hips
as he heads toward the door
and just when I think
he will vanish
down the stairs
he stops to turn
his gaze on me
as time stands still
and I step toward him
breathlessly hoping
he will speak
my name.

A deep trumpet sounds
from some distant place
as he reaches
for my hand
and his lithe body
begins to vibrate and glow
a pulsating male miracle
of rainbow light
with diamonds
dancing among
fingers of white fire
wrapping him
in celestial heat
that does not burn
and from his strong shoulders
rise great silver wings
angelic and potent
beating in synchronous time
to the rhythm
of my heart
and I know
what this means.
I know who
he is.

The next day
I look for him
but the landlord says
he moved out this morning
and left this note for you.

"I never caught your name,
but I like the way sunlight
dances in your eyes.
I am not far.
Come.
Find me."

Way off in the distance
Across the wide river
Near where the far meadow
Meets the trees
I first saw my beloved.

She was picking flowers
To take home
And arrange just so
In her cottage near the field.

She loves beautiful things
And she once loved me
But the water between us
grew so deep and wide
She came to fear the crossing
That would bring her near.

We stood on the opposite banks
Each of us often and alone
Calling out with hope day after day
Come to me, please come.

But we never did
Each in fear of drowning
Afraid to leave the hard land
Where every step is made safe.

Once I waded in
But the water filled my eyes
As I lost sight and never touched
That far desired bank.

In the end too much time
With no embrace
finally wore me down.
I was wet and tired
From trying to swim upstream.

One day I just stopped
standing at the river's edge
And looked no more
to the far meadow
Where I first loved
my maiden by the trees.

On the day I enter your house
and find you crying
I will raze the roof
and replace it with stars
then out go the walls
and all you see
is the dolphins in their sea.

I will plant giant sunflowers
in  the seams between the tiles
on your cold floor
and the dolphins will laugh.

When you are not looking
I will replace your television
with a tank of exotic goldfish
your computer with a cherry pie
and your crying towel
with a garland of lilies.

Before I am done
you will have no place
to hide your grief
for exposed
to my joy of loving you
there is no such thing.

My friend at Wal-Mart
let me into  the inventory warehouse
where they keep the products
people kept returning
and I found them –
the Quantum Binoculars
beautifully handcrafted
with seamless joinings
glove-soft leather grips
polished to a glisten
with a big red switch at the top.

Switch it left to Bourgeois View
and you see the world
as most people do
through lenses of logic and contradiction
happy and/or sad
right and wrong
young or old
rich and/or poor
but there isn’t enough room
in the field of view
to hold all this conflict
and when you look through it too long
everything goes fuzzy gray
and your eyes start to cross
and you get the headache of the century.
which is why
everybody who used Bourgeois View
wanted a refund for the binoculars
regretting their purchase
terrible product they would say
never having bothered to flip the switch.

Flip right to Quantum View
and your headache disappears
as every person, place and thing
pulsates with vibrant rainbow color
brightening, shading, winking
expanding and contracting rhythmically
in a hypnotic dance
and nobody has to purchase or sell
and the mountainous toy robot displays
and the Special Today Only neon signs
and the shoppers and greeters morph
and the milieu turns glorious.

Then you see
a tiny point of intense blue light
in the center of each object
and it grows and starts to spin
and the next thing you know
you’re being pulled into the viewfinder
first by your eyes
then your cheeks and forehead
and you think uh-oh,
what’s going on here
and you’re reluctant
to let the eyepiece
**** you in any farther
but then you hear angelic music
and the blue lights
crack open like supernovas
revealing the infinite molecular structure
inside everything you see
electrons and neutrinos spinning
atoms racing across the panorama
and you realize
you absolutely must
take this wonderful machine home.

Imagine the quantum universe
hiding inside Wal-Mart’s inventory chaos
calm and rhythmic
instead of razory and cacophonous
soft shapes with vibrating edges
scenes arising and passing away
and you watch entranced
mindful and equanimous
as the view transports you
past the electric sliding glass doors
into the auditory memory
of your mother’s soft lullaby
and the innocent tenderness
of your first kiss
and the smell of the grass
on the last day of school
before summer vacation
and images of big silver trout in clear water
and Jesus and Buddha and Mohammed and Rumi
drinking lattes
in the Wal-Mart coffee shot
and they see you
and wave you over
to come sit down and chat.

So you ask your friend
how much for the binoculars
and he says
you really don’t want them
because if you take them home
you’ll like it so much in there
that one day you’ll let them
**** you all the way in
and you won’t come out
in fact
we don’t know
how many people
are already in there
but Wal-Mart optical department shoppers
have been disappearing for months
and nobody can find them
and you ask
if he takes American Express.

I was walking my big Ridgeback Mr. Brown
across the Starbucks parking lot
when this little white poodle started yapping
from the rolled-down window of a brand new Mercedes.

Mr. Brown responded like shot from guns
and before I knew it
he was scratching at the Mercedes door
eager to make friends with the poodle.

Then the Mercedes owner came running out of Starbucks
spilling latte all over his substantial stomach
What the ****…..!?
Look at those ******* scratches!
Do you know how much it costs
to fix a car like this?
I’m suing you and your big ******* dog !

Not wise, sir, I responded…
to be so aggressive with someone you don’t even know
and who has a 110-lb. African Lionhound
on the end of his leash.

I might be a whacked-out Vietnam veteran
with a hairtrigger temper
or a gang member
or maybe I'm just a senior citizen
with an extremely protective service dog.

Well, he said, his belly shaking,
look at my **** car.
I am looking at it I said
and handed him the keys to my ’68 Shelby Cobra
parked and shiny right nearby.
Take mine, I said
it’s more fun to drive.

Old men on park benches
they’re the real heroes
souls defying impermanence
greying and slower than you
recalling the days
when they dared the seasons to change
kinetic and thoughtless
they were once young men ablaze.

These elder boys sit reminiscing
as the beautiful young women prance by
not daring to say a word
for fear of ridicule
but knowing that many nights
they were desire’s center of attention
when lithe legs enwrapping them.

Elders are not holograms
just vintage men with feelings
hurting when the young and sparkling
look through them not at them
as if they were props
in the day’s act.

Elders are not mirages
but consciousness battling time
accumulated wisdom vibrating in the ether
still electric inside and unafraid of time
with smiles on their faces
they reach out for sunsets
and pull them close
with arms of love.

I live in one of those small
mostly untainted towns
not trendy, just funky and innocent
the kind that’s becoming rara villa en terra.
No Starbucks.

But modern winds bring dust and particles
from larger cities around.
They have infected our fauna
which are morphing before our eyes.

Last week I was at the pond
where the deer come to drink at dusk
and my heart broke.

There was that huge seven-point whitetail buck
the one I so admired
huge, taut and fast
but instead of hooves
he was trod with Goodyear offroad tires.
He saw me see him
and embarrassed turned and sped away into the trees
leaving rubber treadmarks in the loam.

Homer got hit by a bolt of lightning
late one afternoon
when he was putting new plugs in his tractor.
The electric laser cut him in half
just like a pie
and one half of him fell to the ground
on each side of the machine.

All the contents of his life
spilled out onto the wheat stubble
including all the bittersweet emotions from his right side
and all the rational reasoning from his left side.

Fortunately for his soul
he was right-handed
so that hand crawled across the ground
and took his heart back from the other side
to where it belonged
with all his random joys and fears
laying there like tiny diamonds.

His left hand didn’t do anything;
it just laid there drumming its fingers
waiting for the paramedics.

Homer’s wife heard the crackle
and by the time she got to him
Homer’s right hand had convinced his left hand
to help put him back together
and all she could say was
“Oh, darling, I’m glad you are OK.”

Every cell in my body
trembles with anticipation
as the curandero croons
ayy ooo wah hee….
….time to come and see me…
as my stomach settles from the purge
of the exlixir of the vine of the soul
I have dared myself to drink
as my limbs begin to vibrate
as I am seized by the hair
lifted right up off the ground
in the arms of great angels
who look like alien jaguar dancers
with huge luminescent eyes
and funny hats
who live in the emerald jungle
where the concoction I took
grows entwined
with my desperate hope
that this isn’t a scam
that there really is another world
or maybe galaxies too
but then I realize
I’m so far away from home
I know I’ll never get back
because I see him up ahead
it’s God with his hair gloriously ablaze
sitting on a grand throne
at the end of a great stone road
like the Roman’s Appian Way
suspended in pulsing interstellar space
and there is a line of people
stretching for light years
all hoping for a sustainable miracle
all holding tickets to see him
and each one walks up to him
heads bowed
and he caresses their hair
and he says I love you
but really, I just work here.

Pharmaceutical angels hover
in the space above my sleeping head
chanting slogans
they have been paid
to whisper in my ear.

“Keep it clean with Terbenafine.”
“You can fly on Abilify.”
“Everyone’s lean on Levothyroxine.”
“Go on a roll with Anastrazole.”
“You’ll get a thrill from Lisinopril.”
“There ain’t no reputin’ the bliss of Welbutrin.”
“Don’t be a geek. Take Pristiq.”
“Go far on Adderall XR.”
“if you want to rate, take Cypionate.”

I wake with a jolt
the neurons of my prefrontal cortex
already firing like machine guns of craving
for the treasure in my medicine chest
and I know everything is going to be fine,
just fine.

When you die alone
nobody beside you to see
your heart erupts through your chest
and a thousand tiny people crawl out.

Some of them climb down the bedside
and build condos in your carpet;
others climb up the lamp
and start hang gliding businesses.

Still others make their way
down the stairs and out into the garden
where they ride on great snails’ backs
singing wistful cowboy songs
in memory of your greatness.

A bold pirate
vanquished King Phillip’s hapless galleons,
bathed himself in gold peso coins
manic fingers feverishly caressing the lucre.

Mindless with greed
he sailed into rough waters
where great whales watched
as gales ripped the grommets
that held the cords that secured the sails
and the great sheets collapsed
like canvas shrouds.

Still the pirate caressed each coin
ignoring the rogue waves
oblivious to the grand schools of whales
gathering around.

Singing in chorus
the great behemoths mused
patient in their knowing
man’s treasure destiny is always
on the floor of the deep ocean.

The captain sank with his ship
his pockets laden with lustrous gold
and his silk shirt billowed in the current
like a flag announcing his descent
to a place where he could not breathe
and nothing could be bought
and the whales slaps their flukes
on the water’s surface
in thunderclaps of applause.

I bought a cruiser bike
instead of a mountain bike
I’m a sextagenarian
not a 30-something
so every morning I pedal
to the corner across from the Ritz-Carlton and the Montage
next to the high-rent Pandemonde Café
and count the Ferraris roaring by.

I never had a Ferrari
but I did buy a ’96 Mustang once
and souped it up with a supercharger
which was around the time
my doctor took me off testosterone
because my prostate specific antigen
was way too high

You have an inoperable prostate malignancy, he said
after the biopsy
You can’t take hormone replacement anymore
It will **** you

And as I lean on my bike
depressed about missing the rush
of another boost of synthetic male hormone
I enjoy watching the Europen speedsters streak by
so proud of themselves
in cars that cost more
than my house.

I used to wish I was them
used to feel like them
when I was younger and charging hard
but now I just utter prayers
for each Lamborghini that goes by
and I say
I hope your car is faster than cancer.

There is a consumer product demon
in the trash underneath my sink.

The other day, I tossed in a wrapper
from a Quest 20-protein-gram nutrition bar
and a hand reached up to grab it.

Thinking I was daydreaming
I pulled out the white plastic Rubbermaid trash basket;
no hand, but the ¼ cup of Kraft Fast Mac
tossed in yesterday was moving, undulating.

It made a distinct voice-y sound
like “You’ll like Mac-a-lot, so eat me!”
Thinking this was just my overactive poetic imagination
I turned to the sink.

My JetZScrubber had wrapped around a spoon
dancing in circles around the In-Sink-Erator drain
while the Ajax Easy-Hands Dishwashing Liquid spewed bubbles
in unison.

Now convinced I took too much acid in college
I ran upstairs where my dog Mr. Brown sleeps
on his 44” x 36” leopard-print GoodDogBed.
“Howdy, partner,” Brown chimed.
“Sure is a fine day to go for a walk
using that Halti multi-loop leader and Sprenger prong collar.
Yes, I love ‘em.”

I took Mr. Brown to the dog park.
the one with the Safe-Steel chain link fence
and the pine trees without labels.
He pooped in the sawdust and vocalized
in his hound voice.
I could have sworn he said,
“Glad I didn’t do that on the L.L.Bean Woven Nylon Area Rug,”
but I wasn’t sure.

Nothing moved
except the wind in the trees.
and I wondered what to call it.

You have always found a way
to inflate yourself,
a thunderhead of you
a rainer upon parades
keeping your own side dry.

Praise your portolio,
record yourself accomplishing that,
but wait, there’s more of you
the lost boy
dressed as a hero.

The prison of ego comes first,
then the crippling psychic wounds
and the inevitable chaos
that just ****** you off
because there is just too much to manage
and you cannot do it alone
but you don’t dare tell anyone
so you fake it
and you don’t make it
and one day
while you are too busy
refusing to be grateful
for the awesome mystery of your own chi
a tagger defaces your BMW
in the parking lot of Whole Foods
and you weep into your tofu.

Youth found me seeking the fastest rivers
diving into them careless and unafraid
then stroking boldly upstream
faster than the current flowed down against me.
I was a god.

Now I watch the Spring ice break
huge white boulders tumbling downstream  
furious cold and unforgiving
but I do not jump in.

Not that I could not swim, but why?
I have already drunk the wine
that flows from the foot of the gold mountains
from where all rivers begin.

Now I walk down a path trod by the elders
past where the river moves fast
to where the current wanes into deep pools
and the silver fish glide among the reeds.
I wade in slowly
water gently rising up
until it closes over my head
and I see something.
I release my breath
and descend deeper into the calm.

The most interesting man in the world says
it’s harder to be confident
more difficult to say hello you're pretty
if you do not have a secret supply
of the endorphins of love

harder to feel happy
at the dog park at midday
chatting with the ***** real estate ladies
while you lust after the tatted chick
with the nose ring and the Rottweiler

she is 40 years younger than you
you were born before her parents met
and it’s more difficult to believe
she would be interested in you
than it is to just go home
and read MEN’S JOURNAL

so you do the hard thing
you stroll up with your Ridgeback
nervous that you wore a tank top
and you say

I am lonely
estranged here in the sawdust
with those women my age
who look like my grandmother
and I bet if you would just listen
I could tell you about a miracle

and she looks at you
like you’re mental
she ***** her head interested
tell me, she says.

First I wrapped the Belkin cover on my 64GB iPad
tight shut with 3M shipping tape
then I glued one helium Happy Birthday teflon balloon
from CVS Pharmacy on each corner with SuperGlue
and took it down to the beach.

Kneeling at the tip of the tide
I beseeched the gods
accept this offering
heal my disbelief
make my body and soul whole. . .
I’ve stopped adding Abilify to my antidepressant
and I’m scared to feel the emptiness again.

I launched my little ship
on the next outgoing surge
as a Red Bull can bobbed beside
and I closed my eyes in supplication.

The lion dog’s muscles ripple
as he descends the stairs
toward the source of food
guarded by another creature
smaller but just as wild.

The standoff happens in the kitchen -
a 110-pound Rhodesian Ridgeback
a pet who wants his kibbles
and the housecat
who thinks she owns the place.

The hound approaches
slow and deliberate
his huge head depending
from a neck
thick like a phone pole.

The cat sits alert but unconcerned
until their noses touch -
then the cat flashes surprising claws
ripping the hound’s nose
and he runs yelping into the living room
to hide behind the couch
to fall asleep
dreaming of the hunt
the rush of his tawny brothers
across dusty savannahs
toward great African lions
with paws like dinner plates
and sabertooth mouths.

The drone swept silent
between the maple tree
and the shed

zapped my dog Shep
with an electric bolt
that vaporized him instantly

while Mr. Stone next door laughed
I told you, Hoffman
to shut that **** dog up

just as my drone
launched a fire grenade
up the exhaust pipe
of his new Lexus

yet somewhere
in the akashic record
of my sweet country
a muleteer helps
pull his neighbor’s wagon
out of the mud
that follows
a torrential rain

I went into the garage
sat down at the workbench
laid out a clean sheet of Tyvek
and sterilized the long steel probe.

This wasn’t a snap decision;
I did months of research
got some tips from an ER nurse friend
knew the risk
but could not live this way anymore.

Numbed my right eye with ophthalmic anaesthetic
leaned over the mirror
and slowly pushed the needle
into the socket beside my nose.

It didn’t hurt
just pressure
like the blogs had said
and then

The world exploded in yellow stars

When I get too blue
I laugh at myself
pick up the leash
and take Mr. Brown to the dog park.

He shows me how
to be carefree
will jump and bark
drink a gallon of water
and lick whomever he chooses
without a worry in the world.

Everybody admires his *****,
What kind of dog is that?
He’s a Rhodesian Ridgeback.
an African lion hound,
but he’s scared shitless of my cat.
what’s yours?
A Visla.
Looks like yours, only smaller.
Did you see that American Foxhound?
That s.o.b. can jump!
Yeah, too bad he can’t pay my mortgage.

The young photographer shows off
his brilliant Doberman’s latest trick –
a double backflip
catching the Frisbee ten feet high
landing on all fours.
The old lady with the blind daschund
says, “Oh, oh, isn’t he wonderful?”
She claps her hands in delight.

The canine Noah's arc show runs all day
with the entry of pugnacious Sharpeis
the arrogance of Poodles
the inscrutability of giant Malamutes.
the pride of leash-holders.

Gradually tree shadows darken the sawdust
and people start parading home,
the **** athletic girls with their boyfriends’ Shepherds
the slow old men with their greying Labradors
the lady real estate agents with their tiny Shih Tzus.

And then it’s silent
I’m the last one there
alone in the gathering dusk
still hearing echoes of joyful barks
realizing how funny it is
that so many people
look just like their dogs
but I don’t think about it,
I just marvel at all this joy.

When Mr. Brown forgets
leaves his puppy unfed and tied
before rushing off to work
the animal mewls confused
abandoned and lonely all day
watching Dog TV.

The parched houseplant
screams from its porcelain prison
for silent water
wishing only to be made wet
fecund on attention once again.

Everything sits silent
in the close confines
our life's domestic drama
just waiting for us to realize
we are born to notice
the cries of who lies closest.

Yet no one is to blame
for ignorance;
it is the Dog's karma to be abused,
the foliage to dry and go discarded
for no apparent fault of their own.

It is Mr. Brown's karma
for his dog to die
with a broken unfed heart
to toss his plants in the trash
to find his home unadorned and silent once again
and wonder over and over
why is life so barren?

Every morning
I feed the mewling cats,
chug my hot instant coffee,
sit at my rickety linoleum kitchen table
and peer hopefully out my thin window,
through the cracks in the glass
beyond the rusted screen
into the acres of wet trainyards and commercial blocks.

There in one non-descript grey building
underneath the watertower
beside the Sheriff's substation
a band of laughing saints
craft delicate malas of lapis
and manzanita windchimes
while diaphonous angels all a-hover
manifest vast verdant grassland prairies,
great ocean waves, sunsets
and spring flowers hidden in rock crannies
where nobody will ever walk,
and they launch grand air balloons
bulging with epiphanies
that may drift my way.

Sunrise waits hours away
at the stoplight before dawn
the navaswam not yet
even crisping the morning air
and it happens again

my eyes open automatically
mind piercing the dark
1:27 a.m. decision
this flesh defiant
toward the digital god

so it begins again
where should I go?
whom will I meet?
what set in motion?
and it matters because?...

all this wondering
in a nanosecond
before I remember
those are not real
they are only thoughts

just time and space games
insomniac headtrips
when the fact is
I always wake up yearning
before the sun

I live at the top of a hill
way above sea level
close to the beach
and some evenings
the sunsets stun me
as gold jewels melt
into red ribbons
and pulsating purple waves
sink into silver milk
and the kaleidoscope changes
with such miraculous precision
I just sit on my humble porch
gasping mesmerized.

Down at the shore
big 5-star resorts
poach on sand
like giant spaceships
and people come
from all over the world
just to sit on expensive balconies
to langour in the sun.

When they see the sunsets
they’re transfixed too
making foreign sounds
to describe the same colors
and I can hear them
like music they chant
and we make an orchestra
as the colors sway and gleam.

We are all blinded
by the effulgence
of nature’s light show
and we wonder
why does this spectacularness
so wild, bold and brief
always end
just as we wait
for it to get better?

But we all know the truth
everything arises
then passes away
and arises again
so we are reminded
our lives sometimes
shine gloriously
then go dark
then shine again
and the miracle is
if we pay attention
we notice our beauty
is never the same twice.

1. What in the world
         possessed you
to do that!?@#$%^
My god . . . that was so stupid and careless!

#2. Why? . . .
I trusted my intuition.
My heart believed,
emotional logic compelled me.
Fluid, spontaneous from the gut.

#1. You’re crazy.
I would never
put myself at risk like that.

#2. What risk?
Getting harrassed
by the mind police?
They don't own me.

#1. But they punished you.

#2. No, just a little
        desperate flaggelation.

#2. But look at yourself
all boxed up,
stigmatized and branded.

#1. You mean the labels?
Those words they use
to define me?

#2. Yes, you’re a bad person.

#1. No, I’m not.

#2. Yes, you are.

... and they argued til dawn
neither knowing
nature does not declare winners
but admires innovation....

like when Magellan sailed off no edges
when Einstein confounded everyone by sailing in his head
when the Wright Brothers lifted off
when Tesla moved electrons
when Christ embraced the centurions
when Gautama just sat down
when the librarian refused to take Catcher in the Rye off the shelf
when Lenny Bruce swore on stage
when Leary and Alpert left Harvard
when Joan of Arc refused to recant
when Gandhi and friends burned their English wool
when Jung declared a spiritual psyche
when the UFC earned a huge Neilsen

so be your own guru
take kava kava instead of Prozac
barter with your hair stylist
and when someone says
you are wrong
ask them why
there are no dinosaurs
in the Bible.

You said I did something wrong
so I have to stay in your box
can’t go to Trader Joe’s to buy bananas.

I guess you see a world
of good and bad boxes
and everyone has to be in one or the other.

I will explore your box
cut holes in all six sides
let the light of freedom in
and when I’m done
there won’t be much of your box left,
just more holes and light
than cardboard and tape.

That’s all your box ever was
just a bivouac
that grew soggy
when the first rain fell
and the directions you wrote
on the outside of the box
started to fade and run
down the sides
in ribbons of color
that made a nice pattern
in the shape of a bunch of bananas.

Zeus had plastic surgery,
his fingertips shaved off
so he would not leave prints
when he committed
his archetypal crimes.

He changed his name to Saturn
then to Cronos
then to Albatross Von Mariner,
all this subterfuge
just to disquise the fact
that he goes borderline ballistic
when he doesn't get his way.

He pulled Icarus out of the sky,
wounded Prometheus’ side,
left Sisyphus on a steep lonely mountain,
dared Demeter to save her daughter,
yet these souls persist
in mnemonic literary defiance
of a single fact…

No god is greater than you,
the karma jury has come in
and Zeus is sentenced
to five years of community service
on Interstate Highway 5.

He will wear a yellow clown suit
with a red rubber nose
and floppy green shoes
with a fast food tray hanging from his neck
and he will walk in traffic snarls
stopping at every car
to clean the windows
to sell hotdogs
with purple relish and black mustard
wrapped in grey buns
as unappetizing and pathetic
as the lies
he has told us about ourselves
for so long.

My mind was pulsing
with endless subtly shaded descriptors
and shockwave verbs,
when a pop-up alert flashed
red and yellow and blue…

YOU HAVE ONLY 9 WORDS LEFT !
ACT NOW !!!

YOUR LIFETIME ALLOTMENT IS 20,000,000,010 WRITTEN WORDS,
AND.........YOU HAVE USED 20,000,000,001.

ACT NOW OR LOSE YOUR RIGHT TO WRITE FOREVER!

BUT WAIT !!!!!!
  
COMPLETE THE SIMPLE FORM BELOW IN THE NEXT 60 SECONDS
AND WE’LL DOUBLE YOU TO 40 BILLION MORE.
IMAGINE ALL THE SHIMMERING ADJECTIVES, THICK NOUNS,
CLEVER ADVERBS AND PITHY PRONOUNS YOU WILL HAVE!!!!!!!!!

Panicking, I clicked on the form
and furiously typed …

William Shakespeare
10 Henley Street Village South
Statford Upon . . . . . .

Google someone
on the Good Internet
it could make you smile.

Like your shy neighbor
the one who doesn’t talk much
not a lot of eye contact
at the mailbox
the one who practices his violin
at the oddest hours.
Google him and you discover

he has a glass eye
result of his heroism
in the Na Trang Valley Massacre in Nam

he has an M.A. degree in divinity

his wife and children died in a housefire
when he was away on a business trip
some years ago

and all you can do
in your shameful paranoid way
is google him
to find the dirt

but there isn’t any
and you wish
there was something
sweet about you
on the Good internet.

You see what glitters
can’t keep your hands off it
feels so soft
tastes so good

By the time you’re in high school
it’s already too late
to get enough of it

but you try anyway
like a responsible adult
despite marital ennui
despite collapsing financial machines
despite leveled forests
despite legal hypocrisy

so reality conflicts
with your childhood dreams
and you go numb
despite the glitter
you’ve piled up
in your desperate garage

then as a senior citizen
you grow scared of ending
you pretend all the craving and striving
meant something

even though you never believed in God
never prayed or meditated
never read sacred literature

and insisted
who needs the Bhagavad Gita
when you have a portfolio
who needs the Maharishi
when you have CNN

eventually age wins
you ache
you get wider
you are too tired

you stop counting
what’s in the garage
doesn’t matter now

all you need is room
for one more thing
about the size of a camp stove

it all stops
when you carry the generator upstairs
close the windows
put towels under the door
and pull the starter cable

the literature says
“Quiet….. runs all night.”
which comforts you
like the glittery things of your youth

All my poems just sit waiting
unwritten impulses of some things
midway between my brain and my eyes

to get one I sit back in my Barcalounger
and pretend my head is in an MRI machine
with the laser scanner looking

I pay the closest attention
silently mindful
of how much I think and feel
about what I see

and then a poem says
you never saw that feeling
you never felt that vision

you just keep running
from one stimulus to another
like a person who cannot write

you need a bigger Barcalounger.

I would rather be hysterical than vulnerable
to what most people call love.  
I would rather couple with strange women
on an Amsterdam getaway
than let one more man
try to own me.

I prefer to ignore my own psychodynamics
in favor of endless talking cure analysis
and occasional astrology cult ******
that promise to speed my eventual evolution
from wounded *** object to invulnverable starchild.

I don’t need a Beverly Hills shrink
to tell me my narcissism and depression and squeaky voice
are symbolic of never having the power
to set a boundary between me and my father
who doted over my puberty
with slobbering praise and veiled lust.

Everyone who knows me for more than a week
sees my father throwing me financial bones
instead of apologizing for what he did
and the more I take his money
the freer I feel
distanced by automobiles with dark-tinted windows,
a house with a skull and crossbones doormat,
a silver .45 under my pillow
and not one single ex-boyfriend
about whom I will ever say a kind word.

I have created emotional and psychological invulnerability;
all men are now my father
and all men pay the price
of never being loved by me
and I pay the price of never being able to let them love me.

Now I just play with partners
and when they inevitably start to use the “L” word
I start to run inside
and I bounce off the walls and mirrors
of my own emptiness
and I go on a photo safari to Africa
where I pretend to understand the meaning of life
and I put out restraining orders
against the men who insist that I explain
and I have come to rely on legal and monetary fences
to protect me from
the truth about my deep loneliness.

I’ve never had an ******
never said I love you twice to the same person
and I think
as long as the money’s there
I won’t have to.

Bodhidharma, the first Zen patriarch,
told Emperor Wu that merit
meant nothing;
but great emptiness
revealed by sitting facing a wall
had great merit.
Wu was perplexed.

Patriarch number two, Hui-k’o,
faced a granite wall in a forest for seven years;
it became his beloved.

Seng-Tsan, the third Zen patriarch wrote poems
and his legendary Hsinhsinming verse
transcended all the unnecessary duality
in the mind’s mire.

Tao-Hsin, patriarch number four,
said don’t’ stare at a wall,
just do the laundry
and watch the clear water
turn brown
then pour it onto the vegetables in the garden
when you’re done.

Patriarch five, Hung-Jen
meditated from age six staring at the horizon
and said if you find the line between sky and land and sea
you slip into infinity
with no sky, land and sea
just one place for the mind to finally rest.

Hui-Neng came next;
no wall
no laundry water
no heavenly horizon
just fascinating monkey mind
sometimes full, sometimes empty
running whichever way, whenever,
and that was all good.

The 300-year Tang dynasty
had three wild man patriarchs-
Ma-Tzu shouted constantly;
Pai-Ching did laundry,
and Huang-Po told everyone
they were already enlightened
and should not bother  with Zen at all.

Lin-Chi was the Jesus of Zen
who loved everybody everyday.
He taught the heart’s clear natural action,
compassion, not walls and laundry and trying not to think.
His love was wiser than his mind.

The patriarchs of zen
taught more than a thousand years
before I grew up an American idiot
in a materialistic world
populated by narcissistic borderline freaks
thumbing smartphones in leather car seats
never doing laundry
afraid to face the walls
built of brick made
mortared tight together
with the fear
of their own compassionlessness.

When CNN monotony breaks my heart,
children wail for candy at cash registers,
and traffic buzz replaces birdsong,
I flee to my garden to water and ****.

Sanctuary explodes in miniature chorales
soprano buds breaking through cellulose cradles
last waters from a thousand wilting blossoms
sing tenor at their organic wake above the loam
and endless pneumatic streams drip from leaf tips
as they always have and will.

A googolplex of minute carbon dramas occurs
melodious ballads echo relentlessly
like Buddha’s kalapas of soil and light
as pistil and stamen call the fat brown bees.

Equally marvelous are my hands'
deft fingers fueled by arterial rivers
lymph and blood on capillaric freeways
with off-ramps for neighborhoods of dividing cells
built into my DNA,
this machine of loving grace.

Even the leather of my gloves
once lived thick on a bull eating grass
that waved on a prairie where the soil  
let the sun in
drank the rain
and that meticulous ensemble
plays still for the wolf and the eagle.

With the last seed sewn
I sit transfixed by the garden gate
knowing every blossom in every random patch
will arise and pass away like the pointless TV news
and I hear the machinery of this impermanence
crackling like spring frost
when sprouts push through
and Gaia’s eternal trumpets ring.

Man’s voice does not soar,
but birds have their own language.
They write on the wind.

It doesn't matter
if you die petting your dog
or prowling the freeway,
you will always hear a whoosh
when you go up into the sky.

And the next thing you know
you are in deep space
walking along an old stone bridge
suspended in endless star soup
with all the latest earth leavers
and you think -
omigod those stories were all true.

All eyes gaze  
transfixed by a celestial diamond
bigger than the Great Pyramid
suspended in blueblack emptiness
pulsing with music you recognize
but cannot name.

The old man beside you says
we are not in heaven
this the line for the trip
that goes into light.

The diamond hums  
everyone's kundalini rises
and one by one
each person reaches the end of the bridge
and steps off into the vacuum of space.

They waft down like leaves
grinning like children on a merrygoround
coming to rest on the diamond
then slowly dissolving into it
and they disappear.

But they quickly reappear
bursting forth from the diamond's tip
as sparkling cherubs
caressing a billion luminous suns
each one another ride
on a celestial road trip
that never ends.

Hard to simply sit
not wishing for that
nor pushing this away
watching your mind
like a caged beast
pace incessantly
pull its own feathers out
trying to escape
the dire wolf
that’s been extinct
for thousands of years.

Your ego says yes
or no
or black
or white
never gray
never OK
driving you
to the Zoloft Store
shut off the judgment
**** the wolf
who stalks you
when you sit.

I’m a nail
not a big steel industrial spear
just your average 2-incher
a household item
used for many chores
but not prized for any.

The hammer has pounded me
part way into the wood
where I’m stuck
not loose
but not tight either.

The wood says ouch
I say sorry
but it’s too late

here comes the hammer again.