Nearly twenty years ago
I can't believe time flies
When all I had upon my mind
Was thoughts of getting high

I never understood my mom
Popping pills at tea
or How my grandpa polished
off a case a day, no, three

Not wanting to become insane
or Die diseased so early
I decided at a legal age
To smoke the ****, for surely

of All the places in the states
Just one said do it legally
I packed my bags and set out for
Mendocino County

I took my time, such a long ride
on 80 from New Jersey
Enjoyed the sights but, flew no kite
Still, made my travels worthy

The California National Guard
and the DEA
Set up a post to check all cars
in/out of the county

It took a couple hours then
For them to inspect me
I must admit here that this greet
Did make me feel uneasy

They made it very clear to me
That I could smoke' the ****
Just don't try to take it out
of Mendocino County

I said "Okay!"  They said "Drive Safe"
I buckled ; drove away
I drove along the two-lane road
Admittedly Amazed

I turned a corner , hit the brakes
There was in front of me
A farmer man, who did tell me
Get out, you have to learn the ****

I abided easily
to learn most all or everything
I could so one day I could be
An expert in Weedology

I spent nearly a week or two
Finding out all that I could
But, I was high and this did lead
to some info misunderstood

I learned cultivation, irrigation
debugging plants by spraying pepper
Planting, pruning, a beginner
But, after time, I did get better

Then one day after a cup
of morning Bhang, I did awake
Then moseyed on to brighter pastures
****** alone, I was quite baked

Would you believe ; I can't believe
A girl I knew from New Jersey
A ***** from Hawthorne she despised me
This feeling was so mutually

After I escaped her grip
And fed her some more bitter lip
I took my bag, it was a lid
and slowly rolled another spliff

I found a house to my amaze
It said "For Rent" read in my haze
I paid the rent/security
Pulled out a blunt, began to blaze

There was no time that I remember
From months of May through to September
That I wasn't high all day
I knew I had to move away

****, (the grass) grown everywhere
Just pick some off, feel better, there
No one left out of the haze
Everybody there did blaze

I got so bored, I was so teased
Stop it!  Stop it!  Stop it, please!
I can't be ****** all' of the time
Oh, shut up and smoke more of this ****

I could not take it anymore
I closed the house and shut the door
All the smoke I once adored
Soon became all such a bore

I packed my bags and said goodbye
To all my stoner friends still high
I headed north to Oregon
To grow tomatoes, seemed like fun

Twenty years now have been spent
Remembering those cronies
Those mendacious merchant mendicants
of Mendocino County

Stomped earth with broad feet
Fastening fresh saplings into
Whole forests
Eight feet by eight feet, the grid
Through winter month's
To early spring
Line of tree planters, twenty
Sometimes less, sometimes more
On Shasta, on Lassen, on Trinity Alps
Douglas Firs and Ponderosa Pines
In Mendocino, in Eureka
Planting baby giants, Redwoods
Sequoias in Sequoia National and Klamath
Young men with ***-dads
Knew some old ones too
Women as well, though few
If you could bear the snow, the rain
If you could bear back-breaking pain
The glory is yours
As was once mine
Reforestation
Go plant your line
To be eternally in
Mother Nature's good graces
And kinship known by campfire

The other night when it was foggy on the coast, we went indoors.
Mendocino has not changed since we first camped here in the 60s.
The Point Arena lighthouse strobes through the density of that darkness.
I sat at the wooden kitchen table with my volume of Rexroth.
The new twisty bulb over me gave off a pale light.
I had something in mind to tell you about, but I forgot to say it.
That full moon rose over the rain-fattened Garcia River.
Don't the different testaments on our shelf back home need a new addition?
A Now Testament, with new chapters always coming along.
The experience of our full evenings becoming subheadings.
Our early days held a war to worry about.
We are far removed from the sorrowful explosions.
The new ways of dying don't excite me much.
Torn holes of hatred in the earth expand,
while older ones smolder in our memory.
Life could be filled with goodness.
Maybe goodness is life and it is all that simple.
What is not good is not life.
Yesterday we went around the outer edge
of that poor farm town.
We sat in that small church with all the vaqueros,
while the baby behind us cried and cried.
I knew what she might be crying about.
The place we were staying, out in the country, so far from it all.
And lonely.
Your voice hushed when I thought about writing these lines.
I didn't say anything that might make you wish to be silent.
The moon, soon buried in that mist blowing in off the sea.
Everything here so slow and dark.
It happened this way before.
Even though it is a different form of darkness and loneliness,
it is still here now.
A few more years might make it go away.
but that would no longer be now.

"Wagons East (1994) - IMDb www.imdb.com/title/tt0111653/ Internet Movie Database Rating: 4.7/10 - ‎3,545 votes (stylized onscreen as ‘Wagons East’) is a 1994 western comedy film directed by Peter Markleand starring John Candy and Richard Lewis. The film marked one of Candy's last film appearances although it was not his last film release. His last film, Canadian Bacon which he had completed before “Wagons East,” had a delayed release in 1995. The film was notable for its leading actor Candy dying of a heart attack during the final days of the film's production. A stand-in and special effects were used to complete his remaining scenes and it released five months after his death."

And it’s Wagons East!
John Candy’s last mega-bomb,
Released 5 months postmortem.
Alas, even the sympathy vote stayed home,
Reject the we-owe-it-to-him-for
“Planes, Trains & Automobiles”(1987, IMDB).
The role, like money in the bank,
Earning diminishing returns,
Yielding interest but losing value over time.
The myth of INTEREST:
Das Capital, 2015.
The Prime is at 0%,
Yet, Inflation soars at, well,
At inflationary rates,
Digit-pounding inflation,
Higher food & shelter prices,
Masked ever so cleverly,
So deftly obscured by benevolent gasoline prices.

“Planes, Trains & Automobiles” (1987, IMDB)
Meet Del Griffith,
An obnoxious slob,
A complete schlemiel
(Also shle·miel (shlə-mēl′),
A serene shower curtain ring
Salesman and tour de force.
A film illustrative of everything
We love about farce,
(Merci beaucoup, Molière!)
And love about any
John Hughes/Steve Martin collaboration.

Needless to say,
I watched “Wagons East”
On TV the other day.
It was ten o’clock in the morning.
Will-o'-wisping in the ashtray,
Smoke from my first joint of the day.
The ashtray, a mosh pit carbonara--
Actually, an inverted exoskeleton dome--
One of dem big muthas,
I once free-dived for,
Offshore Mendocino Coast,
Back in the day,
Back when THE FRENCH LAUNDRY . . .
(The French Laundry: Thomas Keller Restaurant Group, www.thomaskeller.com. Chef Thomas Keller visited Yountville, California in the early 1990's on a quest for a space to fulfill a longtime culinary dream: to establish a destination for fine --314 Google reviews · Write a review 6640 Washington St, Yountville, CA 94533 (707) 944-2380. Daily Menus - ‎Make a Reservation - ‎Restaurant)
Back when THE FRENCH LAUNDRY
Paid beaucoup bucks for
Well-tenderized,
Sledge hammered slabs of illegal,
Black Market abalone.
Most assuredly, I digress.

So where else would I be?
My laptop was open & willing,
Legs spread, wet and waiting for
Whatever comes what may.
What came was a film
Earning pitch perfect
Dramatic chops for Candy.
We owe you, Del.
We owe you for this Anthem:
“You wanna hurt me? Go right ahead if it makes you feel any better. I'm an easy target. Yeah, you're right, I talk too much. I also listen too much. I could be a cold-hearted cynic like you . . . but I don't like to hurt people's feelings. Well, you think what you want about me; I'm not changing. I like . . . I like me. My wife likes me. My customers like me. Cause I'm the real article. What you see is what you get.”
But that was then,
This is now.
Wagons East:
A disastrous ****** bomb.
A vapid character jambalaya:
(1) A defrocked doctor
(2) A sagebrush *****.
(3) A queer book vendor.
(4) A Donner Party Survivor
Sounds can’t miss, right?
Or was it a classic Broadway/Hollywood sting?
Redux: “Spring Time for ******.”
N'est-ce pas?
Four *******
Heading east by wagon train;
Giving up on The West,
Heading east for Saint Louie,
Where freaks & geeks go undercover.
Down go their guards.
Camouflaging the chimera,
Transits the urban Wasteland,
Vast & nasty, as it were.

St. Louis, Missouri:
A much more tolerant
Hideout place.
THE WEST:
Just too much of
A hassle, I guess,
Too much for one’s
Flat-lined human mind,
Bored too shitless by
Buffalo turds to venture thought.
THE WEST:
Neorealismo italiano.
Complete Jolting-Joe reality,
A veritable wake-up call
Devouring any & all
Residual romantic fantasies . . .
THE WEST:
Struggle & Drudge,
Life lived west of the Mississippi.

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That’s right: another advertisement,
Smack dab in the middle of
Of the ******* poem!
My invention, by the by,
Putting herein another plug for
A preferred memorial gravesite,
The Shrine To Me!
Situated in Scituate,
(Always wanted to say that.)
Scituate MA (www.scituatema.gov)
Knowing my kryptonite crypt,
My not-marble-nor-gilded
Princely-monument,
Had no chance to outlive
This fakakta rhyme scheme . . .
The Shrine To Me!
My final resting place:
My very tony, exclusive
Sub Zip Code?
The South Transept
Westminster Abbey
The so-called Poets’ Corner,
Of course!

Which brings me to my true purpose:
My true intentions for you this morning?
To publicize the strange Case of
CHARLES ROCKET:
(Go ahead, ******* Google him!)
“Charlie Rocket, found dead in a field near
His Connecticut home on October 7, 2005,
His throat had been cut.
He was 56 years old.
The state medical examiner
Later ruled the death a suicide.”
And if you believe the Coroner,
A Medicine Man &
Master of Self-Interest;
If you give that sharp-dealing,
Proverbial Connecticut Yankee his due,
Then you will probably also think
That millionaire Robert Durst
Didn’t **** Susan Berman,
Even as we see him
Getting away with ******.
Again.

What a rush, a terrible rush
At my own expense
Running blind like always
My sordid adventures
But I'll be back soon

I don't know how to drown
In your tall trees yet
And I envy them a little
Embraced at their necks
By loving ghosts

Please hold me, too?
Find me when I'm lost?
Perhaps I'll kiss you with my eyes closed
Pull you under me
Wade more gently

I'll cool you down
Leave you just long enough
To shiver in my absence
Or taste the salt
I left on your lips

Any feeling that I have
comes from my throat
but it's brewed in my heart
and buried in my soul.
A bitter ale
beyond red tail
and Mendocino swells.
The grapes in all
the wrath of fall
and stories that we tell.

The waves, like a heartbeat,slap upon the shore.
The good clean smell of salt, sunlight warms my core.
With difficulty I kneel down before Pacific's roar.
I commit your ashes to the sea, to mingle evermore.

You always liked this stretch of beach; the dunes beneath the cliffs.
to feel the sun upon your face while sailing on our skiff.
You feared the coldness of the grave; a desolate destination.
You made me promise, long ago, that it would be cremation.

I cast you forth upon the waters glinting in sunlight
A much more peaceful denouement  than your final night.
Lord give her peace, free of all pain,adrift upon the sea.
The waves crash down upon the shore; the soundtrack of eternity.

At a dinner conversation she said
she felt relieved to be able to touch her partner’s toe to her own on Sunday nights

She said “I don’t think you can relate”
And I stayed quiet and thought of a life lived years ago
when I woke up with you upstairs cuddled and warm
Your  mother and brother downstairs.
Holiday near Mendocino lake
where I met your cousins and uncles
driving to Bay Area because that is where you grew up and meeting your old elementary school teacher the one you had crush on

waiting for you cross legged on the roof of my car

flipping through cds and vinyls in Berkeley -Rasputin and Ameoba
grocery shopping and you towering over
always having to lean down to kiss me
It seemed like a life lived years ago but it no longer seemed to fit or feel mine so I remained quiet
that girl, that world is outgrown

Toes on a Sunday night
were a gift from a past life