It was not really thee
bards of the ages
who inspired me
but of your wages
I shall purloin lithe lines
to add to the meager confines
of my tailored tale

nineteen
green
inside and out
not knowing when I would be ripe
cramming all the ammo clips I could find
into my fresh jungle fatigues
he
the sage of 2nd platoon
told me of the frightful night
when
in the midst of a hellish firefight
he reached for more clips
and found only the remnants of chips
tasty morsels when first consumed
but then a sign he was doomed
“NO MORE AMMO—****”
he sunk even lower into the carpet of night
but to his ironic delight
“the **** that was shooting at me ran out of ammo too”
after exchanging an infinite stare
both fled into the ebony air
the moral of his twice told fable
grab all the ammo clips you are able

and the sage from 1st platoon said,
one night when our brains were brimming with beer
that a full bladder was also something to fear
for being distracted by the urge to ****
could perhaps be the reason we would miss
“some **** slithering through the black grass,
and that, my friends, could mean your ***”

so their caveats did not fall on deaf ears
although
they were filtered by my too few reckless years
yet, I snatched all the clips I could carry
on my 140 pounds of nineteen
and took not one sip from my canteen

others words bounced around my crowded skull
some were from rapier wit and others were dull
but the ones to which I would listen
were the ones that gave me hope for
another day of light
after the perpetual blind night
in the land of the ******

I had learned to walk without sound
all on my own
and find a place to crouch
where not even the dead
could see me, I would briefly imagine
but they were there
permeating the dank air
with silent dirges to their demise
and me waiting with cracked open eyes
for one to come alive
and yank my young *** into some dark hole

we have always seen things in the dark
while hiding from the devil our sisters said would come
under our blankets with one eye closed and the other agape
he was coming, she would say, to get you
for being….born
sometimes, the chosen, the blessed souls,
would forget he was there
and breath calm air
and walk into the life of nineteen
with a full canteen but
not worried about a full bladder
and missing Jacob’s ladder

but those of us who came to this wicked place
could not blithely put our demons to rest
and they continued their animated fest
in the darkness our eyes could not penetrate
and our spirits could not relegate
to the silent land of the past

there could have been a dozen, live ones,
snaking their way through the grass
close enough to smell my sweat
or perhaps only one
crouched in his own woeful world
miles away through the ****** jungle
but it did not matter
for in my wordless chatter
they were all around
maybe the same ones in my childhood room
coming to thicken the gloom
with another tormented soul
who at nineteen
was afraid to drink from his canteen

I would stop seeing them
at some point
but only for a shallow breath or two
then they would be there again
and I would hear nothing
except the other sages
from those ancient pages
where my eyes followed my fingers in curious delight
far from this lethal foaming night

"Because I could not stop for death, he kindly stopped for me
the carriage held just ourselves and immortality"
"Death be not proud, though some have called thee so"
“I looked in vain for another path for my feet
but they were all too small
except the one labeled ‘Death Street’”

and other less ominous verse would take the chance
to make its way into my riddled trance,
“Nature’s first green is gold,
her hardest hue to hold
her early leaf’s a flower,
but only so an hour
then leaf subsides to leaf
so Eden sank to grief
so dawn goes down to day
nothing gold can stay”

nothing gold, nor green I would recall
and when I would lose the light lull of the verse
I would again begin to traverse
into the blind black depths in front of my eyes
and the devils would tauntingly reappear
and I would again hear
the nothingness we all share
there
in the land of the ******
with a full canteen
and an M-16
at nineteen

In the long lingering shadows of last light
the trees do not complain or put up a fight
to keep their dark companions at bay
or cling clumsily to the waning day
the grass will neither wither nor whine
nor ask the hidden orb to continue to shine
but for creatures who wander through incandescent haze
and speak boldly of the passage of days
the long shadows are measured with fear
for a certain number of them make a “year”
and unlike the eternal sea from whence we came
or grass and myriad other things we could name
we hide among shadows when they grow
and beg their source to once again glow

from the sizzling southwestern sun
we stepped into the beer stenched shadows
of the Blue Agave Lounge
left lizards in the street but there were plenty inside
lurking in dark corners, their bodies draped like the dead
faces in pools of beer on ancient formica

we were killin' time
and brain cells
and any lingering ambitions
that lurked in our dark corners

on the wall behind the bar
was a "Felix Garcia" original
some desert artist
who doubtless killed some of his own time
in the blue shadows
of the Agave

the painting, unblemished by the dying around it
was of a schooner
white masts full in blue skies
rolling on purple waves
headed to some blind horizon
far from the Blue Agave

drunken eyes digested this
and perchance wondered
if it reached some blissful port
or took men to a deeper doom

if we could only ask Felix
but he is not to be found
and he may not know
for in the Blue Agave
hidden from the light of day
dreams are drenched in darkness
and tomorrow is a land the lizards fight to forget

Sleeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeep
withdrawing,
allowing
p­eeks
into
dreamless
darkness,
practicing
for
nothingness

EVERYBODY got ‘em a cell phone
pissant with not a nickel to pay his rent got him one
i ain’t got one or the quarter to use this pay phone
sittin’ there behind me waitin' for me to feed it
and hear that jingle like some slot machine that always pays out
temptin’ me like some shiny new toy
but i got two pennies and i ain’t even rubbin' them together
back then, back when nobody had no cell phone
i filed pennies down on the street to make them the size of dimes
when one of them dimes could by me a marshmallow pie
from a vendin’ machine at the bowlin’ alley
that ain’t there no more
but some cell phone store is
but that don’t matter
i don’t want no cell phone
i would like me one of them marshmallow pies
and an extra quarter to give this hungry phone
yesterday, some lady give me three quarters
and i give two of them to Jose to call his mama and sister
he gave me two smiles
i kept that other quarter to make a call
but couldn’t think of no number
or no soul
want to hear my voice
so i give that quarter to a little boy
who was all alone
and didn’t have no cell phone

Vietnam

between honor
and complete disgrace
this place
I cannot forget

For some reason,
I walk softly on this ground
Expecting perhaps to be chided
if I make an unwelcome sound

Among stone sentinels in scattered rows
beside a clear stream that perpetually flows
are markers with names both common and bold
for mourners and the curious all to behold

Some come to release dammed up tears
others to tease their deepest fears
Some like I tread so lightly they leave no tracks
but others come bearing burdens like heavy sacks

I read the dates and do the simple math
and create my own tales of each soul’s path
Some lived eighty, some lived less
and others carved numbers seemed to confess
that the trail they walked was likely brief
and with each breath they exhaled cold hard grief

But my stories are surely not real
and my reveries can hardly conceal
what I conjure up among these standing stones
and the crumbling and hidden sacred bones
are tales that mask the shivering thought
that soon I will rest in a similar plot

For some reason,
I walk softy on this holy soil
and in some coming season
I will finish my toil
And lie near this same clear stream
and begin my own blank eternal dream

Earthquake

somebody (!)
shook my couch
nobody (!) there
but me
and geology

I write for me, not for thee
I write for me, in order to see
the things to which I might otherwise be blind
to rummage among ruins to see what I may find

I write not to create mystery,
nor to unravel history
not to fill my pockets with gold
or even have words for others to behold

because I write for me

when words scar a clean white page
like some tiny creatures released from a cage
I pause long enough to explore
why I opened their door

they were not asleep but only hiding
and when I allowed their silent gliding
I had to follow their puzzling trail
like they led to some great holy grail

And when I saw they did not end
but they like I could only pretend
I paused long enough to breathe
and finally to conceive

I write for me, and not for thee

so even if I don’t understand
the nature of this literary land
the words still keep walking
and my eyes keep stalking
the path I take for me,
but not for thee

from
a cosmic coin toss
to
the bleeding Calvary cross

in your dark eyes
disguised
as stardust
is spirit rust

blink

from mother’s womb
(blink of the eye)
to silent tomb

Morning

caffeine
traffic’s smell
radio’s spell
ends
at my
dead desk

Bukowski

your
seductive
stinking
honesty
makes my sanitized life
a lie

(poem dedicated to the late Charles Bukowski)

Frost spoke,
of ice, and fire
in apocalyptic prose
proffering different opinions
of the earth’s demise
if it be fire,
he surmised it was because of the ire
of raging hearts and unfulfilled desire
not of splitting atoms and infinite fire
if it be ice
he said that too would suffice
for frozen hearts do not feel the pain
of millions starving on the blighted plain
funny, ice has shrunk since Frost’s time
but few would argue we are more sublime
for denial and avarice are alive and well
and whether fire or ice, it can still be hell

White, then...

Nature’s most honest hue
is the one we give a fanciful view
but when it graces gray winter skies
we know it will have its swift demise
for we see this purely driven white
will soon succumb to blazing light

What we gazed upon with rapt attention
will only receive an honorable mention
before it turns to slushy soot
and a soggy nuisance to the foot
‘tis easy to forget it was first white art
but it had no choice but to depart

So when you gaze agape with wonder
do not forget the spell you are under
will be like all white we seem to admire
a victim of some mysterious fire
the true subject of this enigmatic rhyme
the inevitable passage of time

Clicking heels announced her presence
in the deepening gloom
where they hid
crouched like cats awaiting their prey.
She stared through the charcoal air
where
they lay
as she clipped closer
to their hungry eyes and teeth.
But when within reach
she spied their glowing glances
and thwarted their advances
with a simple singular phrase
one they would recall for all their days,
“You are already ******”.
Though this would be armor for few
what the predators strangely knew
was that Wendy Howling
gave no thought to their groping greed
for she lived by a higher creed.
And in the end,
when they mounted her motionless flesh
and grunted grotesquely in the doomed dark
Wendy Howling felt no pain
and she knew struggling would be in vain
for her words were true—
their sorrowful souls dug their way through her
to a hell from which they could not be saved
and her tears were not for her wounded womb
but for their eternal doom

(Old Lyrics referring to those heard from "vinyl" albums of the 1960s)

from dusty cardboard covers
and winged time that flew by
oh poetic ponderous parchment
you have become my sacrament
my sense and soul, my mind’s eye

my grandchild cries in the background
faux fighting to stay awake
while I sit in monitored light
distracted by her playful plight
penning lines for others to partake

some have scripture and prayer
to make their journey into the divine
I plunk rhapsodic rhyme on an electric page
inspired by what I read in a golden age
now seen by me in tragic decline

so I whisper words of the mystical muse
and let them be my guiding light
and weave me through this tangled dream
like some moonbeam on a trickling stream
flowing into my deepening night

in the dead
of night
I write
for 'tis then when my thoughts are draped
like soggy towels on a sagging clothesline
but in the light
of pestering day
they
bounce around like busy buzzing bees
in a place I call my head
so in the dead
of night
I write
and squeeze what I can
from those soul soaked rags
hoping what flows won't be like tears
or some sanguine soup to **** my fears
for in the dead of night
I write
not to purge my heavy heart
of pain and grief
but to come closer to true belief

the sound of one hand clapping

to the silent symphony within

where cells sprout and die,

and red tides ebb and flow,
but no one seems to know

what keeps the conductor
waving his magic wand

we are barren but not bare
to those who bother to stare
we are soaked in silent, sullen mist
but are simply happy to exist
in winter's cloaked passage of time

we speak softly in the fading light
of the fallen leaves, their plight
when strange souls plod on this sacred ground
we are careful to make no sound
save whimsical whispers in curious rhyme

Desert and mountains merge into brown haze
in my recollection of those days.
The smell of gunpowder or paupers' fires
could ignite a conflagration of memories
if I would not extinguish them
which I do.
But one burns ever clear, even in the fickle fog of memory
—the mongrel and her pups
scrounging for scraps around our camp
and the Afghan village below.
We watched them in their scavenging and their play
until one crystal blue and frigid day
when Randy captured the runt of the bunch
and fed her some of his meager lunch,
and placed her inside his jacket
where she slipped into rabbit chasing sleep
and did not make a peep
until I heard her whimper
as the bullet that sliced through her gut
lodged itself in Randy’s young heart.

white winged water walker
filled my dreamy head
sliding, gliding on shimmering glass
far from my land locked bed

once a child and filled with awe
my visions shamelessly bold
a water walker I would be
and straw could turn to gold

but spinning orbs wash one with age
and weight one's wings with years
and flights of endless prowess
are grounded by groundless fears

yet when blind night blocks the light
and one's mind is allowed to explore
childhood's chirping vision
is again allowed to soar