He's Uncle John to you, but John to the rest of us
Got a way of telling stories without the fanfare or the fuss
He can jump into any conversation, has a lot of stuff to say
and every bit is interesting 'cause that always been John's way.

There was one about his summer job before 1970,
paid to push a Swan-shaped boat off a dock in Asbury
With a grapple hook on a ten foot pole, or something of that sort
well he'd push 'em out and pull 'em in wasn't doing it for sport~
The same guy who owned the swan boats, tunneled love across the way
twice a week John worked the darkness, but preferred the light of day.

Played rhythm at the Upstage in band called 'Cory' later
workin' Perkins in West Belmar, took the name from the percolator
Around that time he grew his hair out, it was like an Afro-sheen
mistaken for Tinker, a surfboard chinker and drummer with Springsteen.

Cruisin' down around Brookdale in his '39 LaSalle
Met 'Stinky' Tink at Thompson Park, where he was singing with his pal

Hey John, you look like Tinker,
but now you favor Gere
a live ringer for Mike Richards,
and don't forget DeNir-

Oh, if you can't remember anything from 40 years ago
just ask your Uncle John who knows the time in Tokyo.

She takes the young boy’s hand,
hurt by the wagon pull, and holds
it in her own. The day is hot, muggy,
a typical western Pennsylvania summer.

She comforts him. Wipes away the sweat
and tears, looks at his hand, recognizes
the wound, and then his eyes, so much like
her own.

A dizzying feeling arises, the way one feels
when standing on the edge of a subway platform
and looking up, the first butterflies-in-the-gut
when coming on to a hallucinogen.  

Tripping once in the Santa Cruz Mountains, he
was convinced that he’d died, was killed by a
hit-and-run driver and his body lay lifeless on the
side of the road in Brookdale. She nearly died
in Felton 30 years later.

That night, he’d noticed the way the light of
a street lamp turns redwood trees into
giant, false replicas of themselves.

She hears a dog moaning in the apartment
below hers. He is startled when his cabin door
bangs open and the ******* retriever stands
there wagging his tail. No one knows who his
owner is.

The black retriever would sleep in his 65 VW
bug if he left his windows open at night. She owns
a 2000 VW and as far as she knows no one has
ever slept in it.

In Brookdale one summer evening there is the
sound of couples arguing, the crash of broken
China. He comes out of the cabin, a woman follows
behind and body-slams him into the pyracantha
bush. He lays in the pyracantha laughing as she drives
off in his car. He looks up and sees an older woman
smiling at him. She reaches down, takes his hand,
and pulls him free.