"sacramento" poems
They came for us with tanks and guns.
We stood our ground—the old and young.
All our troops had mustered round
our Capital--Sacramento town.
A New Republic, we’d declared,
and its defense,
among all would be shared.
With the Bear Flag flying high
we all came to fight and die.
Young men in their combat boots
repelled the dictator’s first wave of troops.
Civilians came from South and North
to resist the fascist ruler’s force.
From Frisco and from San Jose,
from San Diego and L.A.,
from Calistoga and Marin,
thousands had come pouring in.
Then US bombers burned the city,
for the orange Fuhrer had no pity.
They won the battle, but we all know
from history, how these things go.
An occupation cannot last
against a people whose strength holds fast.
The tyrant’s troops will tire, while we
will fight on, until we’re free.
Feb 18, 2017
Feb 18, 2017 at 11:17 PM UTC
Under silver wing
San Francisco's towers sprouting
thru thin gas clouds,
Tamalpais black-breasted above Pacific azure
Berkeley hills pine-covered below--
Dr Leary in his brown house scribing Independence
Declaration
typewriter at window
silver panorama in natural eyeball--
Sacramento valley rivercourse's Chinese
dragonflames licking green flats north-hazed
State Capitol metallic rubble, dry checkered fields
to Sierras- past Reno, Pyramid Lake's
blue Altar, pure water in Nevada sands'
brown wasteland scratched by tires
Jerry Rubin arrested! Beaten, jailed,
coccyx broken--
Leary out of action--"a public menace...
persons of tender years...immature
judgement...pyschiatric examination..."
i.e. Shut up or Else Loonybin or Slam
Leroi on *** gun rap, $7,000
lawyer fees, years' negotiations--
SPOCK GUILTY headlined temporary, Joan Baez'
paramour husband Dave Harris to Gaol
Dylan silent on politics, & safe--
having a baby, a man--
Cleaver shot at, jail'd, maddened, parole revoked,
Vietnam War flesh-heap grows higher,
blood splashing down the mountains of bodies
on to Cholon's sidewalks--
Blond boys in airplane seats fed technicolor
Murderers advance w/ Death-chords
Earplugs in, steak on plastic
served--Eyes up to the Image--
What do I have to lose if America falls?
my body? my neck? my personality?
June 19, 1968
4.5k
Oh Jesus time by the pink and purple sunset
Thinking of a traveling guitar boy,
of chai sleep broken by dying beggars
all trying to tell me something.
If the ocean lights don't call us home
we could backpack to the crocodile places
eat thirteen camels with the people
smoke tea and rainy day cigarettes.
Heartache sits like snow on the roof
of the hollow hut Connecticut.
The kids tried too many times for nothing.
Mom dream better for me
Wear your peace face
I'm trying to change
You're talking France nostalgia while upstairs
the weaver makes seven-dollar laments
for international slum chickens.
We can't do better than the break-bone average
reading scorched Chalbi newspapers
hacking coughs and statii soup for company.
Bukowski's in Mumbai eating cheddar
My siblings are in cages down in Egypt
The Spanish Communist cowboys
spill Turkana survivors on the floor of the Greyhound bus
Is there a hood idealist, ghetto healer?
My Sacramento roommate's drinking skeleton coffee
in the bathtub, she's got the Arab fever, so have I,
and not much else but these crazy plague jackets
this hungry smoking December
and Rumi's kids in cold-bread streets with protest signs.
We're easier taught the panic than the magic or the save,
There's too much strange and midnight waste.
You didn't know I needed you but you came through.
You're shimmering in clothes of saxaphone
Mar 6, 2013
Mar 6, 2013 at 2:03 AM UTC
We have let go of our frantic lust
for the shiny metal in the Sacramento hills.
It was hard for my grandfather,
in coming west on horse and with wagon,
dragging a family across the pimpled skin
of the young land, to help John Sutter
build his new empire.
He then found that his dream of good land
for ranching was subverted with easy gold.
Grandfather’s first home on the bank of the river:
a tule hut, or grass hut, left behind by
Mi-wuk Indians, who wandered with
the elk and circulated with the
wonderment of passing stars;
no regard for what shined beneath them.
It’s in the luring poems and the stories that the
old California adventure comes back to us.
No one longer builds much with grass,
and cannot so easily pick out fortunes
by following the earth’s deep cracks.
Some would walk away from jobs and cities,
bulging packs strapped on shoulders,
and head up through the openings
and narrowings of the valleys,
and into the foothills of the Sierras.
Camp beside ****** trout holes
and dip into the riffled water
at the edge of perfect green mirrors:
to find what is precious and become
free from the cycle of the frantic lust.
Apr 30, 2015
Apr 30, 2015 at 10:15 AM UTC
**** that little willy'd ****** *** lick'n; Skid mark sitt'n
Horror written; Square to circle fitt'n
Kid in frame lifted; Menapose acting
Habit of rabidly crashing into walls of madness;
Precision in his crack-head tactics;
Sky's backdrop to average;
Newspaper wrapped is this devil's package;
He's a mask filled with gas from a bean eating flaccid fascist;
Disrespectful **** sack;
A testament to where God's blessing had left his breath;
And bitten lip was given; Heaven's sin times seven;
Building this living devil hell hole;
Logic of Kelso; Autistic clap of the elbows;
Destined for death row;
Festering hatred, New York to Sacramento;
Hitler's stencil by broke'n pencil;
Bigger ***** then Elmo;
Range of insanity; With driver in hand, You tee up family;
Frantically filling fantasy of being calamity personified as Anthony
Majority holder in depressions percentage;
Son of a Prada wearing father; Regarded by all as Caustic;
Temper Atomic; Reasoning Neurotic
Monotonic **** You
Jul 23, 2012
Jul 23, 2012 at 4:53 PM UTC
prepare for the high gates to fall.
for the great bowl of us
to submerge under stolen soul waves
& atomic guts.
the seven year tribes; or
fissure of statehoods and broods and brother against brother.
end drenched in whisky blood,
& desperado cheese.
fungus.
[the rebellion kids] with their drums and sling-shots,
get their throats cut in the open street sweet heat
& blitzkrieg.
all first-born hearts plucked
from atop the great pyramid, preserved, and in
frosted time-capsules.
yet the leopards remain healthy.
while cities plunge into putrefaction &/or
radioactive ****
from **** to corner to tomahawk
in skull death note.
beaten back to the parking-lot of a best western;
in the battle of sacramento;
is an ammo-less infantry drummer,
& a bleeding medic.
they laugh and snap morphine tips
in the revelry of their final formations.
moon crescent
slows and all the woods liven with flocks of small children.
they live on plant sugars, wild
mushroom and boiled water.
they hide in caves of ancient etch;
old time-gone man & woman & buffalo.
they hunt owls with homemade crossbows
& cook the meat on holy spits.
grinding the little bones
into tincture rubbed beneath their eyes.
this, to exhume an astral essence.
Jul 17, 2014
Jul 17, 2014 at 4:56 AM UTC
Pure winds
Beautiful prairie
Tall grass
Kissing the dew
Mighty fork
Winding tributary
Escorted by grass, fescue
Aged trees
Standing in groves
Greet the fowl of dawn
Talking bison
Muffled tone
Still awaken the merry prairie dog
Lone rider
Haulin' mail across the plains
Headin' west, for Sacramento
Indian fighter
On plains self-same
Will insure this mailman sees no tomorrow
May 8, 2017
May 8, 2017 at 11:44 AM UTC
I strut with confidence alongside her; she "fails" to acknowledge me
I try to attain her attention with my friends; she continues to ignore us three?
We decide of something else. We chose to go up to her and join her party
Whilst remained fixed on her dress which was Sacramento and sparkly
Bedazzled from her dress it seemed I was in the dreamworld
I had somehow dreamed that she approached with a kiss and swirled.
"Time to do it"I had repeated to myself. I grabbed her hand. I twirled her like a figure skater.
Finally,I found out she or he was a transgender, so...later?
Dec 20, 2014
Dec 20, 2014 at 1:13 PM UTC
all i've been able to think about lately
is a poem written by fingers on a keyboard
attached to a left hand not yet responsible
for being blistered with cigarette burns
or lifting can or shot or handle to lips
with which to stain -- barley, hops,
potatoes, rice, and alcoholic love.
and i've been thinking about how i felt
after i read a poem written the night
before by a left hand now singed
and swollen, and guilty of lifting
many such apparatuses bearing
many such inks to blot out
mistakes and scribble over
all the misjudged words
that have spilled from
lips stained with barley,
hops, potatoes, and rice.
and i've been thinking about
the content of that poem,
and about how differently
i thought of it two nights ago,
before i got my own matching
business card with a followup
appointment for next week,
and a matching warning
to allow 24 hours notice
before changing the day
or time of an appointment
in order to avoid being charged;
and with it came the opportunity
to write my own poem about it:
Christina M., LMFT,
Wed, 4-17-13 at 4:00 PM,
and it has a sacramento street
address with a phone number
i have no intention of calling.
and i've been thinking about
how i met with her today,
and what we spoke of,
how i told her about drugs,
and how i told her about drinking,
and how my grades have been slipping,
and how i realized that
my poem is his poem,
just eleven months too late.
and that's why i told her about
this party i went to this weekend,
and how i'm passive, and i have trouble
speaking up for myself when i need to,
and how we sang until i left the room,
and how i went outside in the cold
after i came back inside to notice
something i wasn't expecting
to make me sad, but did.
and this person with whom
i have another appointment next week,
and most likely the week after that,
for however many weeks it takes,
told me that it helps to tell a person
how you're feeling without
gluing strings to the information,
or getting upset, or lying,
and so i guess this is an attempt,
albeit one made out of cowardice
and impatience, and some desire
for there to be an easier way
to tell a boy i've loved him
ever since i found this stupid website,
filled with his stupid words,
and his stupid poem about
a stupid girl he used to date,
that clinically broke open
my amygdalae and upon them
tattooed every feeling
of which i was never sure.
Apr 8, 2013
Apr 8, 2013 at 4:56 PM UTC
She took the train for the first time
To go spend a few weeks with her daddy
In the summer before she started second grade.
Her suitcase had pink light up wheels on it
And was full of her best summer dresses and pictures
She drew with his name scrawled on the back.
She cried at the station because she didn't want to go,
And slept the whole way there.
She took the train again, in high school
Accompanied by a group of friends
Going to the city for the weekend to see a baseball game.
She didn't bring any luggage,
But came back with arms full of plastic shopping bags.
She cried because her mother didn't understand
That 16 is too old for a curfew,
And smoked cigarettes the whole way there.
She took the train, once more,
Her freshman year of college.
She went to visit her best friend at school.
Her duffle bag was full of flimsy bikinis and Sartre.
She didn't cry this time, until on her way back
When she realized that something had been lost somewhere along the way,
And that she was too old now to ever know what it was.
She took the train, again, for the last time.
The summer before her second year of college;
She said she wasn't going anywhere in particular.
She bought a ticket for Sacramento, and left it in the car.
This time, her suitcase was full of heavy rocks,
And made her tilt a little to the left as she dragged it down the ramp.
She began to cry at the station, for the death of someone she used to know.
And, seconds before the train left,
She flung herself onto the rusted tracks,
Leaving behind nothing
Except a couple of ticket stubs and a poem titled "Somewhere".
Jul 15, 2013
Jul 15, 2013 at 12:04 PM UTC
We headed south that night
Right down the highway towards our new life
Sunny Olde California here we come
Everyone wants to be in Cali
Me, I don't understand why
The sun's too hot
It's so crowded
Too many famous people
What's so great about California?
Why does everyone want so badly to move to Cali?
But now I understand why we left
Why we left our comfortably modern house in Vancouver
Vancouver had everything we needed
All the love and support we needed
Everything we needed was there in our small little town
But now we are moving to Sacramento
One thousand four hundred and thirty seven kilometers
Fourteen hours of driving
I finally understood why she did it all
She was taking us away from him
So he wouldn't hurt us anymore
When the court date came
We all had to testify
I wasn't sure what I was testifying against
But somehow I answered and answered til I broke down
After my endless crying
They gave up on me
I wasn't fit to testify she'd say
But I understand why
I was too young to understand but now I do
He came in all sunshine and lollipops
We all thought he was going to stay
Stay forever and never leave
He left in handcuffs and bruises
We never saw him again
Until my mother dragged us all down to the jailhouse
He was leaving...for good
The apologize really didn't matter to me
See I didn't understand, but now I do
I understand why everyone wants to be in Cali
You become like an ant
You are invisible
Jul 24, 2013
Jul 24, 2013 at 2:18 PM UTC
I caught a Union Pacific headed westbound
howling at the moon
A blanket of stars and my guitar
that's when I wrote this tune
That "Midnight Express" will get you there
if ya haven't a worry, or reason to care
Headin' down the line, steady as she goes
it's like heavy metal rock and roll
------------------------------------------------
Rode it up an' down to Sacramento
when a railway man said, " Ya gotta go."
I heated up iron 'til the trail went cold
riding heavy metal rock and roll
Heavy metal, rock and roll
it shakes and it quakes , rattles my soul
I wasn't born on a train
but that's how I'll go
thanks to heavy metal's
rock and roll
--------------------------------------------------
Now every time I hear a whistle blow
I think of "catchin' out" and wonder where it's goin'
Well, I may sing like some "country folks"
but, I love heavy metal & rock and roll
Nov 3, 2014
Nov 3, 2014 at 7:44 PM UTC
CRV: California Redemption Value?
Nice euphemistic cover-up for a TAX.
Nice, nice, very nice, CA elected state officials;
Nicely done, Sacramento.
Everywhere else in the country you get real money—
A fixed number of pennies, nickels, or dimes—
For your plastic bottles and aluminum cans.
But in California, the licensed recyclers
Get to pull the market price out of their *** each morning.
California Redemption Value?
What ******* genius
Government kleptocrat thought that one up?
Conspiracy Alert: who gets all that CRV money?
And what are they doing with it?
Oct 21, 2015
Oct 21, 2015 at 1:29 PM UTC
Heading down the ninety-nine
Keeping in imagined lines
Phasing out of trying times
Blurring open space
Heading north to Sacramento
West to San Francisco
Anywhere you go I’ll go
Anywhere you want to be I’ll be there, too.
Fading down the ninety-nine
Pretending we all feel fine
Ignoring toyotas in the sky
Wanting sunlight on our skin
Heading south down to L.A.
East to any other state
Anywhere you go I will be
Anywhere you want I will go there, too.
Jan 15, 2014
Jan 15, 2014 at 1:23 AM UTC
Everyday
As I am lifted from
The depths of
Bullet transportation
Up
And
Out
To the busy city street
Leading me to where
I'm supposed to go
The word Conveyor Belt
Comes to mind
Every face
The same
As the day before
Clouds white and stained
Stupid, unworthy pillows
That the angels won't even touch -
They prefer that Tempurpedic stuff
Expensive taste
Those angel's have
God must have
Rubbed off on them
The belt spins
The bolts are stainless
Shining naked like a
New born baby in the
Sacramento River sunlight
The oil thicker
Than the first mud of Earth
Thicker than one-hundred faceless
Soldier's blood
Mixed to perfection
With sympathy and
Black newspaper ink
Thick as the human heart
In its final moments
The last three beats
Echoing loud like the screams
Within the insane asylums and
Delivery rooms:
Buh-bump,
Buh-bump,
Buh-bump.
Then,
At long last,
Silence
Nov 12, 2012
Nov 12, 2012 at 5:56 PM UTC
maybe you and i
could take time
for each other.
a stroll through
the leaves in
sacramento.
why cant we fly
like the crows?
they only know
about everything
ive ever turned
a stone over for.
we never get
to taste the fruit
for ourselves.
this cheap dinner
is no armour for
the life you keep
out from me,
a magicians dream
you cant see the fake
thumb that hides a
phoney penny.
its really only worth
half what he says.
the show and the
tricks are just
tricks.
Jul 14, 2018
Jul 14, 2018 at 10:14 PM UTC
planning
The other day Anna created a Pinterest board of wedding ideas (Cheesy, she knows). “It’s time to hop on the bandwagon,” she said. She insists every other girl she’s aware of - except her weird Yale roommates - has one.
We think her girls back home (in Oregon) - who didn’t go to college, are matching up with the Larrys and Gregs who stayed home to become auto mechanics and carpenters - and are now serially getting married. This trend seems to be exerting an odd, psychological pressure on Anna.
“You may be jumping the gun,” Sophie observes.
Anna’s never even had a long-term boyfriend before, but she wishes she had one now. A part time BF anyway, because who has time for more? Anna is self-proclaimed awkward with guys, especially cute ones.
She created a tinder account and uses it to see how many matches she can get - but she refuses to meet any guys there because she says she’s not “desperate.” She thinks everything about tinder screams awkward, unless people are just hooking up there - and that idea, in her mind, is absolutely disgusting.
saving the planet
Late last Friday night, a graduate friend of Peter’s threw a party at his house - far from campus. The house was packed with people and the music was thumping, the crowded rooms jumping - practically ******* - in time to a Sacramento horror punk band called “The cramps" that was playing on loop.
I made it through the living room mob to the kitchen, which was oddly empty and well lit. There was a disheveled girl gripping the island bar with one hand, like we’re on a rocking ship, while trying to light a cigarette with the other. I gently wangled the lighter from her - so she didn’t set her hair on fire - and gave her a light.
Afterwards, I slipped the lighter into her skirt pocket, and noticed half the island had coke spilled all over it. “I gave it a drink,” she said, slurring and wavering on her feet, “it looked thirsty.”
That’s when I noticed her now-empty *** and coke cup next to a soaking wet little cactus plant, two ice cubes now lodged in its dirt. I reassured her as I helped her onto a chair, “you were saving the planet.”
Jan 30, 2023
Jan 30, 2023 at 3:42 PM UTC
Synical Sarcasm On Such a Serious Saturday In Simple Sacramento-
See The Signs Of The Sad Sorrow and Sorry
Than Decide - If Its Worth Shame
and The Self Blame Than Play the game
If Not - Take the hit of self saturated fate
Aug 24, 2010
Aug 24, 2010 at 8:16 AM UTC
The Challenge is, my veritable pantheon of followers,
is to describe thyself, without thy name,
in 6 stanzas
of your rhythmic, syllabic and linguistic choosing
Write these as your own poems
and link them to me in comments, below,
and I shall do the same as a separate piece
(when I get home from my show in Sacramento tonight)
Ye, who accepteth this, my humble Challenge
shall earn major kudos
and I shall be flattered and honored
and truthful, in turn, in mine.
I think this could be inspirational and communally entertaining and enlightening.
What sayeth thou, my friendly Fellows,
Will my Challenge be taken?
Jan 22, 2014
Jan 22, 2014 at 8:52 PM UTC
Soft soled shoes skipping silently along sun scorched sidewalks of Sacramento
Singing sad songs of sinners sinning
Slinking into shadows of sky scrapers before the sun has soundly set
Scowling at the sound of sick screaming children suffocating from the smog covered streets
Spectators sighing, seeking shelter from scoundrels scavenging cents for smack
******** clad ***** soliciting STDs to self loathing suckers
Smouldering remains, secreting Satan's scent on 2nd
Sunken sailors slitting throats with sharpened sabres.
Aug 3, 2013
Aug 3, 2013 at 4:02 PM UTC
Hey if we spin out
of control
and only one of us
survives
I don't want to go
through all the
saccharine fanfare
of a funeral
You think you could just
toss me on the side of
the road
and torch my corpse
with some gasoline?
I'll leave a note that says
it was okay.
Mar 18, 2014
Mar 18, 2014 at 11:27 AM UTC
Blank pages, sick thoughts, strange recollections on an overcast July sky,
America at war, fires set in Denver, Nazis dead in Sacramento, immortalized in the thoughts and prayers of talking heads, all those spineless liberals afraid to take the plunge, buy the ticket take the ******* ride, meanwhile Missouri looks like Belfast '75, Detroit like Dresden '45, Baltimore can't maintain, unsubstantiated claims of Providence, more sinister tidings out of Washington, they know the last American hero died 4 years ago now we're trying to keep up appearances, can't maintain, trouble carried in on all four winds, the Devil in the Southern sky, hysteria on the television, nothing but nostalgia on the radio, no progress, talking in circles about guns again, no clear endgame here just numbers thrown at the wall, something might stick, somethings gotta stick, somethings gotta stick,
A man clutches a newborn child to his chest, asks me if I think he should **** the thing, I say that's between you and your God leave me out of it,
A black boy blows his brains out on the statehouse steps, out of options, a final statement to pierce the veil of bureaucratic esoterica, blood of love and rage and hope staining concrete for generations,
Desperation, something on the rise, chaos in any direction
God hasn't returned the President's calls since '81, Jimmy Carter deserved better, we all deserve better,
Cold rain in summer, cigarettes, celebrations, weddings and funerals, uncertainty in all things,
Tomorrow the bombs will go up, and no one can be sure where they will land
Jul 4, 2016
Jul 4, 2016 at 2:59 AM UTC
i.
There are imaginations that are made of rust,
and they tend to rest on clothes lines and
spoil the rotting canary of mediocre dress.
Walk with me, because my pebbles cannot
settle against the dim of my breast pockets,
and so weary the sun tells me to strike upon
sweat laden cobblestone tears that chastise
who? You? Says he who comes stifled at my
feet, like an outlet man staring at fruits' chambers,
her wealthy, red string the last of his eyes!
Alas, what sure vagrant would kiss my fingers?
Is dignity the sour aroma of embarassment?
But let him come, when she turns her apple cheeks
to pray to the same head and God above.
ii.
The favorite jest of an arrow is to pierce a leg
while he jauntily catches the brow of his family.
The man will never saunter, nor amble in patterns
that reveals the flesh of a throbbing vein.
A young calf grows like the bluff of puffed cheeks,
and soon another, too--
together. His trousers will widen their stomachs;
his head the curious stew of bubbling concoction
that rise and decide not to evaporate in the air.
And someday, perhaps very soon, the fairest of
them all will chance and gaze into gallant eyes,
but brought down when he lowers the unidentified
color of glass. So be it.
His coins can jangle and fly to Shantou,
to Charleroi, circle around the perimeter
back to Sacramento. Ships move, yet the
infant steps of lead grow dim in development.
iii.
They say the wealthy family cannot last
for more than two generations.
They say a heart cannot last
its beating against another's,
if it be true.
iv.
Once, a man licked his fingers without even touching it.
Dec 30, 2011
Dec 30, 2011 at 10:57 PM UTC
Born in hell, died in the swell
When his mother fell
Into the promised land; now ain’t life grand
Kids pick berries, momma washes pans
Daddy raises a knife to chop his hand
Boy, you are the hero come to save us all
Tie your shoes; smile as I fall
Her cough got thicker, her boy got bigger
Wanted to come home but instead he crossed the river
Back in Sacramento, his father died
The boy, too late, walked as he cried
Dead man smiled, his boy looked down
In all his life, he’d never learned to frown
Momma, he said, I’ll buy you a house to own
With all my money we’ll never be alone
May 18, 2012
May 18, 2012 at 2:52 AM UTC
kissing him was like licking a battery
static electricity when you go down the slide on the playground
I want to be the cigarette between his fingers that he so politely asks if he can smoke
he has a darkness, but I like that
I have a darkness too, but he likes that
(my glasses fogged up when his tongue was in my mouth on the park bench in the middle of the rose garden as people around watched with disgust)
-
Apr 2, 2015
Apr 2, 2015 at 2:20 AM UTC