Happy Man

What a warm steamy day it is today!
I’m sitting on my back porch. Already
wrote one poem, a villanelle about
spinach. Not wearing any underwear,

and I could take off my cut-off jean shorts
and my unbuttoned jean shirt and sit out
here naked—no one probably would see
me. OK, took my shorts off—my long shirt

still shields me a little from view. Finches
flying to the bird feeders that my wife
wants me to refill today. Don’t see the
chipmunks yet—surely they’re not already

hibernating. Maybe people think I’m
crazy, but I’m lucky lucky lucky!

Grit in the Teeth

How could a life not be interesting—

my life, for example?
This spinach needs a lot more rinsing.

Sometimes I’m afraid I’ll be too boring,
but I trust my life is like a color sample—
how could it not be at least somewhat interesting,

even if it isn’t a color you find pleasing?—
It helps you find the color you really
want. But, probably, you’re past convincing,

because you yourself are just a plaything
of fate, being trampled
to death by the turtles that make life interesting;

but deeply charmed by everything—
the sugar-maple
leaves turning red in autumn, all the spinach

long picked. What it comes down to is, I’m dying—
who’ll be incentivized to rake gravel
over my corpse—not a very interesting
task? This spinach wants years more rinsing!

Sitting at Another's Table

Do I infest my life like a parasite
hatched from eggs laid by a moth
that flies in the night?

I try to be a do-right
man who stays true to his troth.
Why then do I feel like a parasite—

wound up as tight
as a mechanical mouse on the table cloth—
a fly-by-night,

arriving one fine evening on your street—
aways a foundering fly in your broth,
trichinella in your joints.

I want to say that I don’t bite,
but if that’s true how did I get my berth
on this vampire-train setting fire to the night—

a pampered bug. My food is life
itself, but I’ll soon be buried in the earth.
I infest my life like a parasite
that flies in the night.

Self

Hinduism is about the Self.

I read the Upanishads when I was in high school.
“Self” feels like hair in my mouth.

We’ve all known people named Ralph.
I always thought the name was cool.
Is Hinduism about Ralph?

Bluff Country Gathering had a sweet staff—
Koken and Milliner—I was a fool
for Clarence White’s tunes in my mouth

like Old Cumberland and Russian Rabbit.
Sorry, I’m scratchy and I drool
when I play, but I’m not embarrassed by myself.

I’ll dance until the bell strikes—
I’ve heard there’s no rule
against dancing with your feet in your mouth.

But I’d like to know in whose behalf
I stir the water and muddy the pool.
It’s lonely to be a self.
“Self” feels like having dust in my mouth.

I Wish That You Would Hurry Up and Strike, Strike the Bell

God, I love myself!
But I’m just a phenomenon.
Time to ring the bell.

Walking through hell
without shoes on—
God, I love myself,

and everything around me is swell;
unless I turn the news on—
then a bell

starts ringing in the ring and I have to tell
‘em to bring the hydrocodone!
I love myself,

like I’m coming back from an air-raid drill
and meeting Baudelaire’s phantom.
Time to ring the bell,

because the banks are about to fail, the bombs are about to fall,
and everywhere we turn there’s treason.
God, I love myself.
Ring the damn bell!

My Serenity Mantra

I don’t have to worry

What happens happens
It’s not about me

Far as I see
Pickles not prunes
I don’t have to worry

Just take care and be free
There’ll be no comeuppance
It’s not about me

I'll reach the sea
With these shoals of wild salmon
Don’t us worry

They swim over to me
And we have a hot gammon
But it’s not about me

Always ready
To play more tunes
Don’t worry
They’re not about me

Child Homicide Victim

What is ailing you, child? Where are the demons you are fighting with? What are the losses and pains you mourn for? Come away with me, darling. Come and let me tell you about this darkness where time and space cease to exist. Come and let me tell you about my travel to the infinite world of silence. Marisse Lee, the Pesky Pixie

Quiet
no-place
where time and space

do not exist.
Quiet comfort.
Grace.

Life’s other face.
Empty time, quiet space,
but nothing lost

or gone to waste.
Quiet
girl killed

by father—
time and space
opening for

her a way 
to empty
quietness,
not time, not space.

A Poet Writing Naked

If I’m a poet writing naked,
how do I retain
my modesty?

Same question,
if I’m actually
performing naked—

on display as a made
thing—on stage, I mean—
modesty

in short supply, because
how I DO LOVE to preen!—
a naked poet getting laid

by the Dhamma!
I see you, you see me.
How modest would I be

if I could convey half
the love I feel
for my own body?
What a poem that would be!

King Kong at Rest

I’ll sing you all a song-o.
I love to write!
It won’t be very long-o.

I danced on the Capitol lawn.
Whose streets? Our streets!
I’ll sing you all a song-o

about trying to right the wrong-o,
fighting the good fight-o.
We’re about 10,000-strong-o

today, singing: We don't have very long!
Earth-abuse is not all right!
But I’ll sing you all a song

about how it feels to be King Kong
punching helicopters, skyscraper-high—
not very long

before the gunners had him on the ground.
To King Kong, and to all, I say Good night!
I’ve sung you all my song-o.
It wasn’t very long-o.

Wile E. Coyote Speaks

May an emergency be a plumb criticality?

Do I have to do something about it right now?
Does my poor planning constitute an emergency for me?

The emergent fact might be my own fatality.
Better sound the alarm, and how!—
emergency become plumb criticality,

no longer hypothetical—
atoms about to blow!
Does my poor planning constitute an emergency for me?

Well, I’m basking in prosperity.
I make as much dough as the law allows.
This big show of criticality

is a totally inconvenient reality
(to quote Al Gore). I want to dream my sweet dreams
in peace, instead of planning for an emergency.

OK, to finally see
if there’s really something to worry about, I’ll consult the Dow.
The emergency’s not an immediate criticality.
My poor planning will nuke the emergency.

Righteousness Is Shameless

Three things that have no shame:
Nature, God,
and Donald Trump.

Nature red in tooth and claw
(said Tennyson),
but no one blames

nature for the pain
it inflicts. And we assume God
is more all-knowing than Donald Trump,

but even that lump
of shit may get off Scott-
free, and forever evade shame.

Well, God deployed the Son—
kind of like Cromwell’s Model
Army. Donald Trump

fits that God to a shameless
tee. No wonder the angels
had to revolt. The Devil has enough shame
to be a lot more human than Donald Trump!


Rewrite by Rand Om Rich, with help of the deTrumpify browser add-on.

Innocence

Nature is not ashamed,

even though its behavior is outrageous.
That’s innocence for you!

We all know who gets the blame
in the pages
of Scripture. But was the snake ashamed

when they framed
Eve, and then Adam,
in that snapshot of Glory—

the original Primal Scene, described by Freud
in his book Ontogeny Repeats Phylogeny?
We won’t have to be ashamed,

because we’ll all just be acting the same
as our ancestors, on that Great Gettin’-up Morning
when our innocence will be explained

to us, and we’ll know who got whose
berth on this hot cruise to Tierra del Fuego.
The dice are not ashamed.
That’s innocence for you!

I'm a Child of the '70s

I wanted to be a child of the ‘60s, but the only real child of the ‘60s I knew was my best friend Victor’s older sister Bronwen.

Bronwen somehow got to go to Denver to hear the Kinks and the Zombies—the Kinks were the coolest of those British bands.

Bronwen also had that Mothers of Invention Freak-Out record.

You didn’t try to call me. Why didn’t you try didn’t you try didn’t you know I was lonely?

Victor and I saw Dylan in Denver in ’66, the day after we went ice skating at the Broadmoor. I think Dylan had The Band with him. He sang Leopard-Skin Pillbox Hat.

“I bought this guitar in Denver,” Dylan said.

“It’s a good-old guitar.”

So why do I say I’m a child of the ‘70s instead of the ‘60s?

The ‘70s was the decade I left home, but there’s no use describing it because it was mainly just a decade of truck drivers and CB radios.

Some of the truck drivers were children of the ‘60s, though, with their weed, whites, and wine.

My friend Victor and I got launched in the ‘70s. Here I am, nearly to 2020, but poor Victor didn’t make it to the new millenium. 

Stranger in a Strange Land

Feeling like an imposter

dropped from a spaceship.
it’s a harsher,

harsher world to get lost in—faster
than you could ever blink.
If you feel like an imposter,

it’s no wonder;
still, why (watching ice-lollies drip
warsh-water

from the gutters)
are you so convinced
you’re an imposter?

Because you refuse the abuser.
You gave up whiskey
years ago because it proved too harsh a

master; nevertheless, your alabaster
soul is gob-smitten
by this sense you’re an imposter
and the world’s a buzz-harsher.

My, My!

Everyone can see how uncomfortable I am,

but I know I can step out onto the dance floor.
Bam, bam, who shot Sam?

My, my! Out on the lam,
and I know my survival skills are poor.
Everyone can see how uncomfortable I am

when I have to get up and face the band.
But I did the brain-type survey, and my score
was sixty-nine. Bam, bam, who shot Sam?

My, my! Intimidated by the glitz and glam,
I’ve got one foot in, one out, the door.
Everyone can see how nervous I am—

they’ll put me on lorazepam
to make me sleep better and cure my snoring.
“Bam, bam, who shot Sam?”

I shout, and I never wear pajamas.
I’ll land on the shore,
though everyone can see how unsaved I am.
Bam, bam, who shot Sam?

The Ace With the Sweaty Brow

There’s a kind of poetic tone
that’s a no-no for me,
never fails to make me groan

quietly—almost like a bad pun,
but it’s not supposed to be funny.
It’s a tone

of voice that implies I can’t go home
until I’ve heard
you out. I want to groan,

but that would be impolite, so I remain
seated as your urgently-intended words
turn my complexion to a sickly green;

or else I take the bone
in my teeth, because I can’t run away,
and my voice joins the general groan

of approbation: What a POME!
I’ll have those precious words engraved
on my tombstone. In a solemn tone,
cue the groan!

New Living Room Couch

So I’m lying on our new couch, with cats

sprawled around me. We bought a cheap gray couch
at Pottery Barn—eight hundred dollars.
I paid the Hispanic movers forty

to move the old couch onto the front porch.
It was kind of an anniversary
present to one another—old couch scratched-
up and dilapidated. Then we weren’t

quite sure if we were disappointed—hard,
and narrower than we’d expected. So,
for anniversary day itself, I
bought two big throw blankets and, the next day,

another of the larger one—plus a
big red pillow. The kitties dig the throws.

Standing Between a Rock and the Sun on the Jeanette Lake Boat Landing

our shadows thrown 

by potter sun
on harbor wheel

Another Eurydice

My accustomed guise—
(may guise be truth?):
living in paradise;

retired from life;
trying to refuse lies;
adopting the guise

of never having realized 
I’d be in this fix—
crawling through paradise,

when the starry sky’s
my home. I confess,
my accustomed guise

of swatting flies
without remorse
seems almost like paradise

already. Steady gaze into the eyes
of Beatrice,
as she guides me through the fires
of paradise.

We Don't Exist As It Seems to Us We Do

I often think of the sheer randomness

of existence—if I’d gone to Tucson
instead of Minneapolis for grad
school, my daughters would not have been born. Not

a one of us would be alive if one
of our billion ancestors had failed
to procreate—a chance infinitely
slimmer than winning the lottery. The

fact that in the dead factual past we
had parents who branded us in certain
ways, and that we made decisions that took
us down certain paths does not obviate

that other interesting fact: the well-
nigh impossibility of our lives.

Fare You Well, Juliana

We sang Shallo Brown

at the Dubliner shanty sing
(alternately called Shallow Ground).

Brown’s close to the bone,
too close to an ankle ring
for comfort. But we sang Shallo Brown

on that St. Paul pub ground,
and we really managed to bring it
this time: we were on shallow ground

but we crossed the sound,
carrying a forbidden thing—
Shallo, Oh Shallo Brown.

And the crowd really got down
with us when we sang, My master’s gonna sell me—
how shaky was the ground

we stood on? Soon all of us will drown,
unless we can sprout wings.
Singing Shallo, Oh Shallo Brown.
Wading on shallow ground.

God in My Life

God came to my aid—

I wanted to say something nourishing and loving.
“God bless you and Piper!” I said.

I typed the word
“God” in my message,
so God came to my aid

like a prancing steed
with a milk-white breast.
“God bless you and Piper,” I said.

Then Piper herself came, arrayed
in vernix, with an APGAR of almost a hundred.
She was God come to my aid.

So now I know there IS a God,
and my dear friend will be fine.
“God bless you and Piper,” I said.

God, who raises up the dead,
bread of life to feast upon,
came to my aid.
“God bless you and Piper,” I said.

Altruism

There’s the altruism of doing for the poor.
The poor will always be with us, says the Lord.
Then there’s the altruism of learning another’s song by heart.

Doing for others is a two-edged sword.
Bestowing my gift, I kill you with a word—
the othering of doing for the poor

apparent in the nice reward
I grant myself for my commendable charity
in doing for others. But when I learn another’s song by heart

I’m the one
who receives the gift: collaborating
and learning the altruism of doing for the poor—

poor me, that is,
poor silly clown,
me trying to learn your song by heart.

It’s remembering how the song starts
that’s trickiest—I’m on my own
with that—the altruism of singing
your song in my heart.

Barefoot Venus

I never get tired of taking photos of my feet.
I pray you get out of this dark shit-pocket soon soon!—
thanks kindly, means a lot.

So much can go wrong when hearts beat.
Your love might die and leave you alone.
I just keep taking photos of my feet,

because my feet look so pretty to me.
(my heart of stone
leaps—thanks kindly, means a lot)—

behavior I don’t let others see—
or only obliquely in poems
in which I never get tired of mentioning my feet.

These epiphanies of Venus I adoringly indite,
while fearing I may lose my dearest friends—
thanks kindly, means a lot.

One of my loves is getting an MRI
tomorrow, and another is being induced on Sunday.
I grieve by taking photos of my feet—
thanks kindly, means a lot.

Abortive Sound Upgrade

Went to Music-Go-Round today to see

if I can upgrade the speaker system
we use at Tillie’s Farmhouse for the New
and Nearby events. The Behringer thing
we’re using just doesn’t seem to put out
like we need it to. Saw this Yamaha
Stagepas gizmo with two speakers and a
built-in mixer for two-fifty. Should have
bought it on the spot, but instead I went
to Tillie’s to get the definite specs
on what we’re using now. Not much diff’rent—
seventy watt versus fifty—better,
and two speakers might have solved our problem,
but when I came back for it it was gone.

The Surfaris Play Wipeout

For the longest time my fiddle only whispered, it wouldn’t speak.

Getting a different fiddle didn’t help.
But now I’m ready for my scratchy fiddle break.

A whisper can be loud and raspy,
especially when heard across a silent lake.
For the longest time my fiddle only whispered, it wouldn’t speak.

There are a lot of antique
fiddles that wouldn’t speak to you if you begged
'em to, always hankering for some fine fiddle break

that some other fiddler could drag out
of that sprung spruce top:
a bow must be applied to make the fiddle speak,

but then it can speak so as to break
hearts and tickle its own pegs,
and I'm finally ready for my scratchy fiddle break.

A little rosin’s all it takes
to make that hound dog squeal and yelp.
For the longest time my fiddle only whispered, it wouldn’t speak,
but now it's wailing “Wipeout” at this fun clambake.

My Hummer

      for Jane Burnes Leverenz

My hummingbird is my German-made fiddle.
It barely says a word
but fiddle-aye-riddle-

aye-day. The label
says The Chadwick London
Violin, but it’s a German-made fiddle.

It coos like a turtle,
speaking from its spruce top,
but it says nothing but fiddle-aye-riddle-

aye-day. It rhymes with “pickle”
and “tipple”—speech never slurred
when hummed through my German-made fiddle—

no, it drums paradiddles—
up-down, down-up, it whirrs
like a hummingbird singing fiddle-aye-riddle-

aye-day. My fiddle is my sibyl-in-the-middle,
though what it says is a perfect surd.
My hummingbird is my German-made fiddle
singing fiddle-aye-riddle.

Lost Poem About a Mouse

Wrote a poem about a mouse

and burned it.
Out in the snow,

far from any house, mouse
tracks ran lickety-split
around some cactus

and a cholla bush,
stopping at
a tiny mousy

mound. Filmy snow
covered it,
but it glowed out gray

and was as dead as any mouse
could be, sunlight
dwelling softly on its tiny house

of snow—dear little mouse,
broad sky
a pillow for your rest.
Lost poem about a mouse.

Song for My Mother

I’m just planning my garden—
my mother’s last words.
I beg your pardon,

you, shrinking behind fences of wrought iron,
singing to the birds:
I’m just planning my garden

and planning to leave my post as warden—
rocks, moss, stonecrop, iron, merds.
I beg your pardon,

I can’t garden without a buzz on—
not sure if I’m tending from or towards
the sun, as I plant my garden.

But your garden is in my backyard now,
Mother, though the soil is hard
to dig. I beg your pardon—

you bought the last carton of nails in your coffin,
but the trail leads not just backwards but ahead.
We're just planning our garden.
I beg your pardon.