if i was a pearl i’d feel itchy scratchy stuck inside an oyster shell if i was a tree i’d  be a big fat redwood fantasizing about Julia Butterfly Hill living and peeing around me if i was a dog i’d be a Catahoula hound if i was Italian i’d be Sicilian if i was pasta i’d be spaghetti if i was Icelandic i’d be Bjork if i was a rock star i’d be Elvis Presley Bob Dylan Jimi Hendrix Jim Morrison John Lennon Bruce Spingsteen Maynard James Keenan if i was i writer i’d be Herman Melville Mark Twain James Joyce William Faulkner Thomas Bernhard Yukio Mishima Naguib Mahfouz Phillip K. **** Gabriel Garcia Marquez Annie Proulx Lydia Davis if i was a poet i’d be Walt Whitman Sylvia Plath Ted Hughes Gwendolyn Brooks Pablo Neruda  Heather McHugh Carl Sandburg Robert Frost Arthur Rimbaud Dante Alighieri Homer if i was a painter i’d be Leonardo Da Vinci Michelangelo da Caravaggio Johan Vermeer Rembrandt van Rijn Paul Cezanne Marcel Duchamp Jackson ******* Mark Rothko Ad Reinhardt Anselm Kiefer Susan Rothenberg if i was a photographer i’d be Man Ray Ansel Adams Edward Weston Diane Arbus Robert Mapplethorpe Sally Mann Helmut Newton Richard Avedon Annie Leibovitz if i was a philosopher i’d be Socrates Plato Aristotle Jean Jacques Rousseau Sören Kierkegaard Immanuel Kant Karl Marx Georg Hegel Friedrich Nietzsche Henry David Thoreau Ralph Waldo Emerson  Jean-Paul Sartre Jean Baudrillard Michel Foucault if i was a singer i’d be Woody Guthrie Otis Redding Grace Slick Bob Marley Joni Mitchell Marvin Gaye Johnny Cash Patsy Cline June Carter Patti Smith Chrissie Hinde Nick Cave P J Harvey Beyonce if i wa a band i’d be Velvet Underground Ramones *** Pistols Clash Cure Smiths Joy Division Uncle Tupelo Pixies Nirvana Nine Inch Nails Madrugada Sigur Ros White Stripes Thee Silver Mt. Zion Memorial Orchestra Justice of the Unicorns if i was a boot i’d be Chippewa Frye Ariat Red Wing Tony Lama Wellington if i was a shoe i’d be Christian Louboutin Jimmy Choo Kedds Chaco Chuck Taylor p f flyer if i was a dress i’d be Channel Dolce & Gabbanna Giorgio Armani Marc Jacobs Comme des Garçons if i was a cowboy shirt i’d be H bar C Rockmount Temp Tex Karman Wrangler Levis Strauss Lee if i was a hat i’d be a Stetson Borsalino Stephen Jones if i was a fruit i’d be a mango apple banana blackberry if i was an scent i’d smell like fresh perspiration jasmine sandalwood ylang ylang the ocean if i was a doctor i’d be a gynecologist neurosurgeon if i was a flower i’d be a hibiscus rose orchard if i was a stone i’d be a sparkling ruby diamond opal if i was a knife i’d be a k-bar switch-blade machete if i was a gun i’d be a Remington Winchester Beretta Glock AK-47 if i was a car i’d be a Lamborghini Ferrari BMW Saab Volkswagen GTO Ford Mustang Dodge Challenger if i was a  TV show i’d be Law and Order if i was actor i’d be Charlie Chaplin Humphrey Bogart Steve McQueen Robert De Niro Ed Norton Shawn Penn if i was an actress i’d be Marlene Dietrich Ingrid Bergman Natalie Wood Audrey Hepburn Marilyn Monroe Helen Mirren  Meryil Streep Brigette Fonda Robin Wright Julianne Moore Angie Harmon if i was a female comedian i’d be Gilda Radner Lily Tomlin Nora Dunn Joan Cusack Sarah Silverman Tina Fey if i was a  football player i’d be Sid Luckman George Blanda Walter Payton **** Butkus Mike Singletary Joe Montana Jerry Rice Payton Manning LaDanian Tomlinson  Drew Breeze if i was a celebrity i’d be Charlotte Gainsbourg if i was a rapper i’d be Tupac Shakur if i was a movie director i’d be Sam Peckinpah Robert Altman Stanley Kubrick Roman Polanski Werner Herzog Rainer Fassbinder Louis Bunuel Alfred Hitchcock Jean-Luc Godard François Truffaut if i was a bird i’d be a eagle hawk sparrow bluebird if i was a fish i’d be a dolphin shark narwhal Charlie the tuna if i was breakfast i’d be a French toast pancake folded in half with 2 strips of bacon in between if i was a cold cereal i’d be snap crackle popping rice crispies shredded wheat cheerios oatmeal if i was tea i’d be Japanese green matcha Irish breakfast Tulsi Thai holy basil Lapsang souchong Luzianne Lipton if i was a soap i’d be French hand milled ayurvedic Avon Ivory Dove Pears Aveda  if i was a man i’d be a football basketball baseball tennis swimmer athlete if i was a woman i’d be a track star runner writer painter gardener doctor nurse yoga mom i'm just scratching the surface and the beat goes on lahdy dah dah

lie to me,
                    it's time. 

       I'm barley even in the room
          or in attendance at the banquet
             of my cloudy fingertips
                  
                lie to me it's time to shake
        that old blue saxophone
            down in a rattle-puff
                              fat lip moan
    
          
         lie to me that I'm as real
        as anything that jumps
           into the cotchels of the sky
          toward a well tied noose

               lie to me my
                 magic limbs
                will hold
              and I'll be strong

              despite my hot
                 and watery
            eyes of lapsang souchong,

                    my soul 
                a liquid swirl
                    of smoke
          against my teacup bones

After cocktails at Luigi's Bar, and then The Golden Bowl,
I proposed we play a gig of jazz-inspired rock and roll.
We all thought we'd make the fans cry out for encores every night.
But our schemes were dreams that faded in the morning's ruthless light.

My blue guitar should captivate the people every night.
But the dream crumbled, the dream tumbled.
My dream faded out of sight.

Playing keyboards was Patricia. (Never 'Trisha', never 'Pat'.)
She'd a taste for gracious living in her small art deco flat.
She would practice chord progressions, sipping lapsang souchong tea.
Then she played away at weekends with her special friend, Marie.

She trained her dainty fingers to explore new grooves each night.
But the dream crumbled, the dream tumbled.
Her dream faded out of sight.

We had Ritchie on electric bass, with tap-and-pull technique.
Such a clever devil — Ritchie almost taught the bass to speak.
Ralph the drummer's backbeat cymbal crashes measured out the bars.
We agreed the speed — then found we could not play like superstars.

Would the crowd be wowed by passion from my lovely blue guitar?
No, the dream crumbled, as the band stumbled.
Our dream faded overnight.

The Blue Guitar Quartet
was as close as we could get
to our vision for the music of today.
But we bumbled and we fumbled,
our aspirations humbled.
So we slowly put our instruments away.

"The Blue Guitar Quartet
is down, but not out yet.
With practice you will crack it," said Marie.
"Let Patricia be your singer;
she's a musical humdinger,
and as soulful as a solo girl can be".

"She can improvise a blues
based on any riff you choose.
Let's have handshakes and embraces —
this quartet is going places!
Here's to jazz-rock, and The Blue Guitar Quartet!"

So I keep having this thought
where I'm standing
at the edge of a cliff
and it's not possible
to fall

It's not the wind,
pushing me up-
or the resistance of my
ankles
pressing my bony heels
into the dirt
to force me back
when my body starts
to go-
teeter off the verge
of change.

it's
the pull of hope.
the soft ribbons of
sunlight that
snake their
way into the dark
and push it out with
gentle fervor-
with aching persistence
and the knowledge of
better days

I keep imagining standing on
the edge of a cliff
and not remembering
what it's like to fear
or be swept away
by love.

I am a true lover
& come from a long line
of traditionalists,
believers of the leaf-faith.

I live in their spirit
day & night,
from Yunnan
where the gold is harvested,
down to Kenya I travel,
then to Sri Lankan rainforests,
to sip the Sinharaja black brew.

I visit the czars with Kusmi,
stay with Earl Grey a bit
on those misty eves
& on some chilly days,
I relish a nice
mysterious Chai with spice.

O yes, you dear fellow imbibers,
try some Golden Monkey
& a hit of Lapsang Souchong,
PG Tips & a hot cup of Sencha Uji.
It'll certainly hit the spot,
tonight.

And at the rising
of the morning star,
tomorrow,
gently down Red Moon.

Betwixt the wish to endear
with soda bread and cabecou
as ever our vases of marigolds wither with age
Yet I wish we could auger well, while standing still
with a *** of lapsang tea
before you  kick off your slippers
tip toe upstairs
in sweet anticipation,
entice this confusion  with our X and Y's,
and by turning the latch of the bay window
you will look into a misty pool
and dream of your  entitlement.

While leaves may dance
as the wind visits, passing by
on its way from there to here,
there can be a stillness too
that comes upon itself, falls,
descends even, alighting on
plant or tree and settles, stays
for a moment or maybe a while,
restlessness resting.

In the conservatory
it is time for tea
and the finches flit about
as Lucy opens the door,
brings the tray forward
to the table by the Citrus Sinensis.
A plain girl whose face lights up
as the little birds flutter to her side,
and suddenly bright-eyed,
with grace she kneels
to wait the required moments
for the Lapsang to enfuse
before pouring, before filling
my bone china cup painted
with the quaking aspen leaves
of the Populous Tremuloides
shimmering and fluttering,
quivering like butterflies.

This was just an experiment
a try out for the main event.

Who else could make the cut
but those whose clothes hung
from their backs
and sidled along the railway tracks
buffeted by the passing trains,

pains and gains and somewhere there
a smile to knife along the frigid air.

Monuments in Timbuktu,
books
and who can read them now?

Trials and tribulations run like blood
from ruptured veins and stain our
histories,

I drink a cup of Lapsang souchong
picked from
the wrong side of the hill
it's
still as bitter.

I have stood tall along the muddy banks.
Leaves fall into the river as in our nature to love and part in constant sorrow.
A Lapsang souchong tea steeped in boiling water her lips are a smoking pine fire.
Suspended in tension her empyreumatic kiss lingers.

The Chinese have got
to me
by using
Lapsang Souchong
tea,
how dastardly,

but they took me
quite easily
after the
twenty-second
cup.

My destiny waits patiently
the time has not yet come,

I make lapsang souchong,
yet
drink in the Summer sun.