9:00pm: We hugged and chatted. Your sister joking with us, your brothers being silly. I love your siblings.

9:30pm: We went hunting for gear. Your dad helped us find sleeping mats and told us where to find some tarps.

10:00pm: We climbed onto the fort and made our beds. I swept the bugs and pine needles away. I remember thinking, I hate pine needles. Why Florida trees, why?

10:30pm: We made tea and got ready for bed. I love chamomile tea. Lots of sugar. Washing off my makeup was easy with your sister's fancy face wipes.

10:45pm: We climbed into our sleeping bags. I was warm. I love the plaid pattern of the sleeping bag I always use.

11:00pm: We ate snacks, drank tea, and talked. Poptarts are so good late at night. Better than in the morning. And the hot tea felt so good against the chilling breezes.

11:30pm: I turned off the flashlights. I liked it better that way. I like hearing only voices, not seeing the person. My hearing what they say feels amplified that way.

11:30pm: I laid on my back and realized how pretty the trees are. The sky was orange, oddly lit up more than normal for that time of night. Few clouds drifted in the sky.

12:00am: I poured the story out to you.

12:05am: I began watching the moon cross the sky. It was very orange and it moved faster than I imagined it would.

12:30am: I got a text.

1:00am: I proposed an adventure. I wanted to do something. I wanted not to have to think for a while. I like late night happenings. And I like not being alone.

1:15am: We got off our lazy butts and went to the garage. I started riding the ripstick. I picked it up right away and didn't fall which was new for me.

1:30am: You taught me how to longboard. It was fun, though I kept forgetting which way I would put my feet.

1:45am: We started riding bikes. I love your mom's bike. It's so smooth and easy to ride..but it clicks sometimes in weird ways. I liked the clicking too.

1:50am: ***** it, I didn't want to reply.

2:00am: We rode through the neighborhood. I love the houses in Naples..

2:05am: I fell in love with the night sky. It was beginning to look more like the normal dark blue rather than orange. The stars started to peek through better.

2:10am: The cold air made my blood rush. I was wearing such warm clothes, but the wind went straight through. I loved going fast, racing you. Speed is beautiful on a bike.

2:15am: I never wanted the night to end. I wanted to ride late at night forever.

2:35am: The silence was so beautiful. We would be quiet for short bits. I liked the pictures my mind created during that time.

2:40am: I wished I had his time stopping watch. I always wish I did.

2:45am: We started the ride home. My breathing got pretty rough. Cold air always hurts my lungs. But it was so worth it.

3:00am: We put the bikes away and crawled back into bed. I loved the fort so much..

3:10am: You fell asleep.

3:15am: The moon was higher in the sky. It was clear and white and full.  I could see it perfectly. Peeking through the trees. I fell asleep slowly. Loved it all.

long agonizing nites
Spent running like
Dog show enthuisists
The ukanuba muts (our crew)
Have names
And cold plates of
Meat loaf waiting
For them
When the noise
Of old boots
Warns the couch
About our irival
ill be away from
Home some where
Adventerous like the
Green hills of affrica (Hemmingways worst knovel)
Getting the perfect
Shot on the rhino three hundread
Yards away in the straw grass
Watering hole.
He falls like frozen patatoes
And my day closes
Half full
Half golden like
Whiskey on
The burning slopes
Of tacomas
Blue collared ridges.
Flooding the flood
Of endless floods
Inside my nitecaps
Hidden shot glass.
Thats the only way
We all sleep before
Tomorow brings out
Our best jokes.
The only pride we
Can find after
To many hours of
Half finished sandwhiches
So we can make room
And stare into
The welcoming fridge.
Good nite tacoma
I need all the double
Shifts we can get
Before we all find a new
Paying gig.

Cold winter camping
Frigorific night huddled around fire
Many coyotes auspiciously howling nearby
"Don't worry, they're across the water"
Still I wait at the ready with coyot-basher

Tents in snow shielded from peninsula
By tarps lashed together with rope and ply
"You'd probably die out here" says Oscar
Here meaning Newfoundland
Here meaning the Northern Pen.
Agreeing monosylabically

Nearly hypothermic thinking
Not so bad
Maybe stay another night (says the voice)
Sneak down to water
And jump in ice fishing hole

Riding the air
In dark morning
A steady current of rain
Descends
Upon everything
The fir tree
The house roof
My dogs fur
The empty Ash tree
The fallen leaves
Brown, red, yellow, orange
The bird feeder catches the water As does the bird bath
The puddles
The street
The cement
My head

My ears hear each
Multitude of patterned drops
In apparent chaos
Reminds me of the brain
The synapses in my brain
Circuitry, each drop a connection from
Dendrite to dentride
Messages of the unknown
Of falling to earth
Of vulnerable life
Unprotected.

The unhoused, in the cool soaked air of December. Will you remain blessed?
Will you spread your joy in the patter of rain to those who bare the rain in their skin, on their dampened clothes? Adding a chill.
Will today you find some without a home
Bringing tarps, blankets, source of heat, to those who listen
To the same rain
While they shiver
And you stay in your glow with your tidy wood burning fireplace. Stay comfortable? Risk giving for giving sake. What floods of love can you share in December rather than giving to
Your precious family, the left overs, the excesses
And give to charity that make each day another day for breath in rain from the heavens. I choose the rain. I could be the one in
The open now, soaking as I pen these words.

Hoping words of love, neutrality, non-judgement and altruism be the "church" we reside in. Drop by drop.
Over a hundred different sounds of rain brought to earth by gravity, in my receiving ears, and the tiny sparkles of light reflected upon the  light from the street lamp shining upon concrete saturated by this extended morning rain.

I stepped out of the Honda
and onto the sidewalk
for the first time in my life
I was keenly aware of both my skin color
and the lack of any similarity
as I scanned my surroundings
brotha’s shoulder to shoulder
lined the fence
every ten or twelve feet
there were groups
five or six deep in circles
many eyes cast glances my way –
at the corner the stranger and
would be savior
offered me a wooden handle
serrated blade
kitchen steak knife
presenting it as a way to feel safe….
I laughed…
“No one is going to see me take a knife from you”
“I am just a sick ******, man… I don’t want no trouble.”
he laughed back at me and with me
“Don’t sweat, Cuz…”
“I was a homeless ****** in Seattle for a while,
we’ll take care of ya.”
I stood for what seemed an eternity
at this makeshift park/ work-out station
looking down the alley at tarps
against tarps
strapped to tarps
and thought this was not the L.A.
you see on T.V. –
about the time I was sure I got robbed
and was now going to have to find my car
and leave downtown
broke
and sick….
dude rounded the bend…
he spit into his hand
at a glance I saw ten little balloons
containing something dark and mysterious
a smile spread across my face
he matched my excitement
and offered me safe travel back to my ride
when we got back to the car
I dropped two balloons and 10 bones
into his ashy and worn hand
he smiled,
“get the **** on outta here, boy”
I took his advice and drove out of Los Angles
right back up Hollywood Boulevard,
past the freaky freakies
and the mass of homeless
to the first rest area on the freeway…. –

Aspen, ponderosa pine, blue spruce
pink glacier-cut rock, scree, ravens
gray jay, peregrine falcon, hawk.

We climb to 11,000 feet in three days,
camp at Lawn Lake for three days. Alpine
tundra. Elk, bighorn sheep, marmot.

Tileston Meadows, ticks in grass,
rock face of Mummy Mountain.
Binoculars show pink cracks in gray rock.

Stoke gas stoves, play cards.
Boil water, set up tarps, lay out
sleeping bags, hang bear bag.

Watch crescent moon slice into
Fairchild Mountain. Moonlight
makes a mosque of the rocks.

Yellow aspen splash in dark green
spruce and pine. Gullies where streams
slash during spring snowmelt.

One rock, feather or flower worth
more than money. Need no wallet,
keys. Just clothes for fur.

All day climb toward saddle to see
what's on other side. One hawk floating
among bare peaks and over valleys.

Wind at 13,000 feet
turns to sleet. Turn back from peak,
take boulders two at a time down.

Winter moves into mountains.
Then we fly from Denver to New York
where it's still summer.

Seated on the edge of the riverbank
Watching raindrops fall across the city light's reflection;
A living Monet of color and fluidity and the sutble refractions of life.
The bridge above me is humming with traffic,
The railyard to my left fills the cold night with the timeless bellowing of midnight trains,
Used syringes lay amongst the driftwood here.
A crudely painted ******* adorns the trail head,
Overgrown with brambles bushes and blackberry vines.
A solitary ****** cruises the shallow dregs of shore
On an endless quest to find her mate,
Painfully unawares of his fate,
Fallen victim to a poacher,
Some careless fool with a greedy and discontented heart.
The tents and tarps of Portland's homeless, the lost and forgotten, line these hillsides;
Their many dreams and hopes lie broken amidst the rubble of this everyday existence.
I sit here often, smoking and thinking, and watching the ever changing lights.
Every now and again I take a picture, gather a stone, or fall asleep to the sound of rain
And the smell of earth and leaves and rushing water.

And the ships were fogbound for three days
Their hulls split smiling wide by the spray of the channel
We're hovering with them in the dimness of a drunk sun crawling under
A dusk devoid of color
Welcome rainclouds follow countless bouts of bleakness
Slate-gray miasma of refinery exhaust swirls
Mingling skyward with the overcast scene and all it's gulls and cranes
Cawing in the dampness toward their roosts under jetties
Those frayed hurricane tarps on dilapidated rooftops
Laid creased and faded by morose Texas suns
Epitaphs blotting dismal landscapes of copper and olive
And smashed concrete begging to be reclaimed by nature
As all of it is when the seasons heave
Our interim footnotes disguised by the power of purpose
The notion that one day our role will be to make life better for each other
(Oh, how we loathe being found out)
Instead of grimacing, sage-like, naked and angelic in our blindness by the mirror
While each shred of truth oscillates into blue ruin and we shake, shake, shake
Mesmerized by houses where we once lived and stories we must have led in them
In varied and skewed alternate realities, and in dreams we once had
Some of which paint homage to our own grim summers here
Some in which where my roads leading home were less obfuscated
Instead being laid out like the chemtrail creases drawn solemn on our brows
(We won't notice them until our thirties)
This far south, everything is the ageless vacuum we've known since conception
Thusly we're bound to the irony of it all by dull tradition and the will to break it
Among all other shams bred real by the ambitions of confused white men
Their warring remains reigning evident within my crooked heart
Under whichever corner of earthen floor it may be buried
Your guess is as good as anyone's

Tell yourself every day that you are competent, you are fierce, you are hard-edged and don't need anyone.

2. Lick your wounds. Heal yourself.

3. Ride the rain, let it soak your bones and cover you in ice until you're sick. Then, burn it off. Turn into fire and stone. Cover yourself in tarps and bury deep into the ground.

4. Skate and skate and skate. Let the concrete scrape your knees, let it break you on the outside but strengthen you on the inside.

5. Walk like you're Angelina Jolie. Walk with purpose. Never run to catch up to anyone, they'll wait on you. (reminder: you don't need anyone)

6. Turn into a dragon. Breathe fire.

I have to remind myself things are changing around me
Even though I never leave this place
Even though these are the same walls always around me

The same riveters in the morning trying to close up the sky
With their rivet guns, their godly mission to blot out heaven
With blue tarps and steel
Building up the fourth wall around me and shutting up the sky

Today the air changed there was roofing material floating in the sky
pieces of apartment buildings flying around and leaves
The leaves, the trees were screaming,
It was like those home videos
of hurricanes

bone-colored clouds and the blurry static of rain like an old television
The rain passed quickly as it had come over me
Was it even there?
It was notable, I wrote a poem about it.

truly convienent
to be able to tell your boss
im just taking a break
right back to it when i finish this poem
****
you can hang dry wall
AND
write something to make someone
smile
cry
point a finger in your direction

yeah
about that
there isnt anything special
in my portfolio
just stuff i scribble on bar napkins
next to the doodles of you
maps too
in the small spaces that are left
i write those down
i mostly leave them for the barkeep
but not always

sometimes i bring them back to work
here into the room with
the tarps on the floor
cans full of paint
and joint compound
to reread them

and if i werent lieing
about smoking all these cigarettes
i would tell you
that im going to my car to write
just ONE more
before i send you those TPS reports

if only i could upload
all the doodles attached to them
people would know
that im PROBABLY better off
sticking to writing

The light barely enters through the curtains on the window.
The smell of the concrete floor and oil.
Emptyness in every second.
Disorganized toil.

SANDOVAL
            Your brigs of bustling pilgrims light at last
            On this sweet-scented isle called Cozumel.
            Depopulating half of Cuba’s farms,
            The skills of our six hundred souls, or so,
            Erupt now in a pitched activity.
            We’ve confiscated idols, and our cross
            Now overlooks the rising ropes and tarps;
            Our cannons hedge the campground, with our horse,
            As secret weapons, hidden in the ships.

ALVARADO
            Now what a breezing cakewalk will it be
            To pacify this docile flock of lambs!
            Let’s ****** the sweetmeats from their trembling lips,
            And wean them to the yoke of servitude.
            Vassals alone make masters out of men.

CORTÉS
            Not yet so fast. For Cuba’s stewardship
            Forbids such a carnivorous regime.
            Father Olmedo warns us not to tease,
            Much less ******, the native nymphs.

ALVARADO                                                        Cortés,
            We trust that you, like all stargazing men,
            Crave glory, fortune, and above all, fame;
            That royal favor and divine accord
            Will light on those who quell idolatry,
            And carve new lands for God and His Castile.

CORTÉS
            But like a gentlemanly pirate, I.
            For Cuba’s governor deceives himself.
            His pure concern for human chattel, gold,
            And bandying the Indies as it were
            A distant annex of the Moorish war
            Has wrought a desert from a paradise.
            Long-term success requires a colony.
            And with what wherewithal! These islanders
            Stand head and shoulders o’er Carribbeans,
            With their rich-painted books and towering keeps,
            The graceful girding of their modesties-

SANDOVAL
            Their slave trades, and their binding bright bouquets-

ALVARADO
            Distilling liquor: Culture’s surest sign.

CORTÉS
            Our prime directive is to baptize them,
            Not march before their eyes the Seven Sins.
            But how to learn their Tower-of-Babel tongues?

Dig

We were nearly back to the house
when the front end loader shattered
the silence and back filled the hole
drove off some vireos and cowbirds

amped up seven whitetail browsing
the pine break above Calusa Way.
American Spirit *******
a new moon **** of mouth

the operator feathered the lever
while gathered together we grazed
potato salad, deviled eggs, sliced ham, rain
from the Gulf over to Melbourne

soaking the operator’s boots
ducking into his pickup truck
for the long drive home to Pedro.
It hammered the tin roof shed  

out back where your tools
tarps, trouble lights, line trimmer
home brew insecticide in unmarked
milk jugs, old spark plugs

a lifetime of nuts, bolts and washers
huddled warm and dry on shelves
ball peened the tamped sand lozenge
on the ragged fringe of the silent ranks.

It’s hard to find even with a map
Calusa Way coiling through the bahia grass
flowing past stone faced theater goers
house lights up well past their final act.  

Vireos and cowbirds
even the whitetail browsing
the pine break pay me no
mind down on hands and knees

undoing the honest work
of the operator, sifting handfuls
of sandy backfill for something
I might have missed.

The Harbor freeway was without the congestion and the gridlock that made this highway famous.
Empty freeways demand speed and in Los Angeles everyone's in a hurry with somewhere to go.

It was a rare sight in a city full of men and their machines
A rare sight that was quietly becoming normal.

The lack of cars made the otherwise thick layer of ***** brown smog become a minor smear on an otherwise beautiful blue Southern California day.
With the changing of the guard the nameless planes with their exaggerated white lines across our skies magically returned.

There's more of us noticing things today than any other time before.

To the far West Venice is dying and the beach has become a refugee camp full of tents and blue tarps all wasting in the wind.
Handball courts now occupied by old bikes, tents and an array of useless garbage someone calls their property.
And the California girls' no longer come here to tan.

The girls on Figueroa stand half naked on 64th street waving like debutants at the lonely men as they window shop for *** from the safety of their vehicles.
The girls here never tell you their real name and all the men are called John.

The Gang members in the Hoods on the West side and in the Varrios and the Projects on the East all use Graffiti as a way to convey their threats to one another.
The Taggers bright, bold pieces bring colors to the otherwise grey concrete freeways.

Downtown is nowhere you want to be without a million dollars or a side arm and a reason.
They gave Skid Row up to the people and the graffiti then watched in horror as it grew into what it has become today.

South Central continues to bleed red, brown, blue and black.
Curbside motive candles dot the city corners like mile markers along the highway.
There's been far too much death to ever mention peace here.

Hollywood is slowly dying and Melrose is at 50% capacity with robberies happening almost everyday on Rodeo.

The Cranes along the Harbor stand like giant monuments to a God no one prays to anymore.
And there's a lot less Cargo trucks on the road today then any other time before.

Yet we are told to "Stay home ,we'll pay you to do so".
While outside our city is dying and there is no where to spend the money we're given anyway.

These trips by the county boys,
Being further deputized as burly, armed elves
Tended toward the grim,
Taking them on roads way up in the hills
Where pavement was the stuff of fantasy
And the home-sweet-homes
Were ancient pock-mark and rusted single-wides
Or jerry-built additions uneasily affixed
To some abandoned hunting camp or outbuilding,
Third-hand rugs or tarps covering
Hard ground, possibly augmented with a sprinkle of sawdust,
And you learned not to do more than exchange hellos
With the parents (this just one more minor indignity,
One more for-today-only handout,
The toxic mixture of resentment and self-recrimination
Never far from the surface) and head for the kids
As quickly as politeness allowed, the smiles
(Sometimes positively beatific, others suitably wan,
Knowing that tomorrow would be another day
In a series of just another days)
And upon leaving one such place, a couple of the boys
Heard an incongruous tinkling, this place
Far enough from town and insulated by bluff and pine woods
Where it couldn't be from St, Mary's or Faith Baptist,
And turning the corner toward where they were parked,
They happened upon a black bear,
Improbably wakened and wandered from some nearby cave,
Toying with some improvised wind chime,
Comprised of old graters, 50s-issue percolator stems,
Silverware liberated from some Denny's or school cafeteria,
And as they backed away to seek
Some alternate path to their vehicle, the younger of the pair opined
Must be some angel getting his wings, hey?
To which his partner, who knew these hills
And their sundry denizens all too well replied
You get that bears attention,
You're mebbe gonna find yourself on the waiting list.

Dermible detritus set with us
tarps and oil
Soil set with toil
Boiled in bags of tripe
Chips and chicks who titter
Gave me pick of the litter
Loyalty has soiled me
and sent me unto hither

I ask you for a question
Lessen layman make me walk
Make me milk my maiden
Make me cut my stalk

Showy showman dyin'
I felt a lot like cryin'
Cause cousins cause the answer
I call it family cancer
Dancing with my girly
Surely felt so good
But death is still a dealin'
And it's dealin' good.

Wet grass broke my heart
Plastic tarps taught me how to hate myself
Metal cans frizzed my hair and sliced my throat
Fireworks burned my thumbs and left the kitchen lights on
We're all pushing twenty and things are going stale
Chlorine burns my brain even if I hold my nose
I slept inside with the mountain boy and my best friend
While they were naked in the dirt
I didn't want to leave The Survivors, but she saw my seams begin to fray, stitched me up, and put me to bed
The broken hearted girls stayed apart that night
I couldn't hear your American Screams and I'm sorry

I had a mental breakdown in a grocery store yesterday
Linoleum floors caked with dirt and a mother scolding her child

I am a child without a home
I write myself into circles
Push my knees into my chest
Wrap myself in my own arms
No one else will do it for me
I live under an endless gray-slate sky that somehow finds a way to be beautiful
I often forget what summer looks like
But the chemicals stick to my bones like car paint
And I hate the sound of fluorescent lighting
Because I was born sterile in an empty lot
It still hurts to look at the pile of scrap metal
On Wednesday nights when the sky is black
And I run through empty parking lots with bare arms
I run my tongue on the roof of my mouth
Spinning salty lies into threads and tying them across the murky ice that sits in sidewalk cracks until March
I fall asleep to the chorus of train tracks
I'm not even sure they're real

When I was small I used to reach red hands to the sky
And I'd wonder what it would feel like if my palms could touch
I used to leap off creaky silver after my hands scratched its ridges
And I'd pretend like I could fly
Like nothing ever mattered but the scraped knees
I miss those nights when I was breathless and numb
Sliding down raw streets on my stomach, when the laughs escaped my lips without a sound
And I collapsed beneath the white waves, I remember what it looked like
When my ribs folded themselves into hands around my lungs
The deafening roar of silence and the violent passing of time

I love the taste of red wax pouring down flickering fingertips
Cradling ash wood that they used to spell my name
I steal hearts out of mason jars and ask which one was mine
Those days when a laugh wavers on every exhale
And I fall to the ground in fits of dizziness because it's so funny that they all look the same

I've never liked hospitals all that much, but sometimes they feel like home.
But mine was a shell
The reverberations still give me headaches.
And so I write myself into circles to sort out the recalls of illness
Taking frameworks like contraband pills ingested through pencils and flashlights
Because I live under blue tarps and newspapers that never get read
I crave the feeling of falling and the scent of winter mornings
Against the backdrop of a whitewash sky that doesn't exist
Because my hospital was imploded on a Tuesday and now I can't go home.

Like a golden tree ornament
or an orange bouncy ball.
Spherical, super blood wolf, unbelievable.
You could toss it around in the sky.

We sat on tarps over snow and ooed and awed.
We passed around the binocs.
The only earthly trouble was the minor
frostbite which seeped into our toes.
We saw the total eclipse of the moon.

81

To Morrissey: I’m not mad

(I saw you
once
strolling up the Venice boardwalk
at sundown
You had the biggest biggest smile
On your face
Which even at that time seemed
Out of character
I had in my hand
What i had come for
The six white athletic socks for 10 dollars pack sold on tables under nylon tarps
And as we both walked up the boardwalk
I thought to myself
What do you have to smile about?)

It is my wish that when you
Revisit this earth again
In your next incarnation
And adventure
That you return not
as an overripe spire of blooms
but as a
Small piece of iceberg lettuce leaf
Too young
too immature
to reach the others alongside you
Your curl a little anemic and so very very delicate.
Just a bitter yellowish bud.

Or you could be the stalk of Iceberg
that’s chopped away
And perfunctorily discarded
pretending to be cabbage in a cole slaw that nobody wants

At the end of the day
The staff may try to hurl you into the dumpster behind the Greek Diner or Chinese
But you won’t make it

You will slip out of the ******* bags
And fall onto the gravel drive
In the spitzing rain.
Growing more
Translucent
Inspected by rats and old hungry pigeons
And maybe a lost snail

And even they will walk away
This won’t be like Wembley at all

As the sun rises the trash men come
But you’re stuck on your back
or twisted on your side
appearing smaller than you are
are overlooked
Bags are tossed into the truck
yet you remain
Waiting

Later that morning
The hose comes out to wash away debris
That would be you
And you reluctantly perhaps
and bit painfully
peel most of yourself away and flow down
the sidewalk with all the leaves
and cigarette butts
and orange peels
To the gutter
And then into the sewer
And then before you’re even aware
The River
Where a fishes’s mouth quickly opens and scoops you in
and just as quickly
Spits you out again
(Your little bits)
To float slowly
Since you’re so light
Transparent
Really ephemeral now!
Your very last traces.

You float down to the bottom
To this other side of the clear blue sky
and dissolve gradually
Not gracefully
into a chilling primordial smear
of muck and sludge.

Here may you find Stillness.
Here may you find Rest.

Breast pocket.

Sorry.
Haven’t written in a while.
Scarf drank some bleach.
He said he was fine.
the glue dried up.
But Sarah said she’d go get some new tarps.
Passed out form singing in a river.
Woke up without any legs.
I walked it off.
Till I remembered we have crimson hats and mittens.
It’s cold here at burning man.
Memphis time is the right time to shoot up.
The wires are crossed.
N the surfing is credible.
n I’m going & got tired half way thru this.
                                 Your son that never knew ya.
                                  Lighthouse Bukowski.




Garrett Johnson.

It starts with the rain

Gusts swirling with heat

Lightning slaps, synapses break

Thunder bruises, knuckles white

Sky blackens

Tarps blow away

Fist sized hail pound

The foundation is breaking

Cover your heads



Here comes the scream

There is so much more sky
above the street i followed for years
from home to school.
Reflections of the changing blue
still caught in storm drains and roof tarps.
Staining the glass crowding the corners
where i used to catch up
to a yellow dog named Sam.
He was taken by sleep
and creaky hips
long before the wind
cracked the limbs of our trees.
A mottled brown cat
patterned like a lake
skipped by rocks in every direction
followed Sam with greater noise
and a harder peace.
The sun stays longer at their intersections now. 
Old growth never fully gave way.
But the wind took its leaves all the same.