Sunday, June 29, 2008

Neck and neck

Tell her she knows where
to find me. That much
hasn't changed.

Say that Grandpa Augie
is still in his heart
and he still wears the shirt
Grandma gave him.

Describe the simplicity
of grabbing a burger all alone
and the families all looming
about, sometimes glancing,
sort of thinking
why is he here.
The little kids thinking.

And maybe no one's asking
and everyone will find a name
for this summer to be the best
and all the winding, wining,
and weekday mornings
will reach a clean solution.

Wednesday, June 25, 2008

Prospective Boxes

Shaken loose from our stirrups,
we're devoting our perceptions
to the wide-open signs
occurring all around:
a found photo carrying more
and habits gaining serious momentum,
along with songs
gathering immensity
from the gap that's trying
to move the minutes.

Small words are doing big things
and big things like a near-serious
moto incident are sliding past like they
were meant to be.

I wanted a friend to say
"It's a bad week for things to happen,"
but no one did so instead
I found a friend who made me laugh
out of nowhere and so the three
of us sat there in the approaching summer
afternoon in the quaintness of being
lodged in the midst and we just let it out.

Saturday, June 21, 2008

June Night

Everyone's talking about the heat
but a month from now we'll
be talking about how good it was
how it was great while it lasted
like Malibu Thursdays and who knows
what to say to that.

My misgivings have left us burned
and the momentum of that has
been enough to carry lunches
and provide enough lucidity for
vague notions of powerful things
to be brought up and twinkled, but
not quite carried through.

The summer storms back home
must be starting about now.

Tuesday, June 17, 2008

Vacate, we said. Vacation

Many are dead and dying
and some are starting families;
that's the atmosphere. That's the context
for how we can rationalize decisions
like smoking away the afternoons:
blubbing about rural this
and the rolling yellows pecked about
with cardinals.

I'll even close my eyes to that,
and even a man who doesn't much
take to the sun can understand
the appeal of sand in the toes.

Well, well, well...
I read a poem about salvation
and another one about uncertainty
and that one was also about
the timing of shaking hands.
More importantly, I'm deciding
whether or not you can read a man
by if or how he eats a burger.

Our trajectories have been fueled
and postponed by those gritty old tunes
and somehow someone has made the time
to live bi-coastally when someone else
is trapped at home out in the woods
or stalled out back in the shop.

Get back when you have a moment,
call me back
call me back
and call me out

I'll run from them back into your arms.

Wednesday, June 11, 2008

Cold Spring Trail


This used to be a hell of a country

rattled off the set.


Now it's just tumbling
over itself, but there's nothing
a good haircut can't hide.

And I expected one day,
wafting through a Wednesday
morning, I expected the sight
of someone so soft and subtle
and clothes out of time and
a glimpse of something
on the wrist suggesting ease
as I expect to be going about
my day, trying to look
comfortable in the heat.

Then, months earlier
and more in the present sense,
I expected not to understand,
but when he asked me Who
wants to lie
disinterred
like a city under smog?

I thought (another coffee),
That is me
(that is us).

I thought
That might be us.

There are no senses in these beginnings
because I bought an orchid
from $5 man, who made it from Los
Angeles to San Francisco on a scooter.
Twice, he said, twice.
And maybe the orchid was stolen,
but no one talks
about these formative years
or the shifting, evasive
notion of nostalgia and fear in used to.

Tuesday, June 3, 2008

Only Leather Could Withstand

What I didn't see was God.
What there was out there
were some good corners
and intimations of the sublime
as cars that spread the lane before me
and a lingering image of R.C. Bates
(the relic and poet) and
I sang a Merle Haggard song
to myself as ripples of what do I do
spread, shackling my speeds.
And my fortune read
you will soon gain something
you have always wanted.

It's Not If It's When

I've been waiting for disasters
I've noticed. All my life.
It started back in High School
when I thought If
I was dying it'd give me
an excuse to make my way
out to the middle of Colorado
to fish and live in the springs

or if my parents died or something worse
everyone would say
it's ok.. it's the hardship.

Now I've been waiting for an excuse
to tear myself apart again
and smoke myself to sleep
in the morning.

I've been more and more curious
about how it would feel
for something really bad
to happen and that's a bad sign.

Been reading poetry that somehow
got published from men who felt
banned by the rest and feeling
what the hell and identify
is a word that might fit
and also alienation to see my thoughts on
another's page before my eyes
and back to the songs that hurt.