Why Finish What You've Started?

Interesting to think
I could let a poem lapse,
just stop writing it.

Like my life itself, of
course—it will just lapse.
I’ll never finish it.

Not for Posterity

Wanting to show my stuff—
post on the internet for all the world to see—
be it just a photograph.

I sniff around like a sleek chipmunk.
A chipmunk is very dodgy—
it wants to strut its stuff,

but it can’t abide the guff
from all the barky doggies.
I took a photograph

of a chipmunk once—
several, actually.
Naturally, I wanted to show my stuff,

so I commenced to write
a poem about a bird-feeder
with a chipmunk hanging off it. The photograph

was no better than the poem, but good enough
to be posted on Facebook for a day.
Wanting to show my stuff—
today’s photograph.

Virtual Embrace

            I have lost my turtle dove

I hear a jug-jug, but it’s not a dove.
It’s a squirrel
that wants a hug.

My backyard is full of creatures in love—
the world is fertile!
The jug-jug I hear is not a dove,

but maybe the chipmunk that nibbled on the cover
of my journaling
book this morning. I wanted a hug,

so I sat down and scribbled a
poem—Near a tide-pool
by the bay, I can hear the kaplink-jug-jug

of my mandolin, the cooing
of my own heart as I message you an Otis Redding
song for a hug.

Wanting to prove
that love abides forever,
I thought I heard a dove
and got a hug.

Reviewing Recent Work

I wonder how much joy
I’ve been expressing,
joyful boy

that I am, with my flatfoot foogie
and my floy floy.
How much joy

can I employ,
reaching out to the professions—
I profess to be a boy

who’ll stop acting all coy
and bashful when the depression
lifts and I can lead with joy

again. “Belay! Belay!”
I sing out with my voice
the very boy

who cast themselves adrift on a sea
of tears so they could hear
the stars’ rendition
of This Boy.

The Impersonality of Poetry

Challenge for poetry:
to keep the reader from knowing
whom or what you’re

writing about, and yet be entirely
cogent—images flowing
in lucid rivulets of poesy.

It seems that poets mostly
succeed in their mumblings
about whom- or what-

ever they’re vituperating so emotionally—
but not emotively—about,
like roosters crowing. The poetry

is virtually meaningless,
making little impression
on you or me or

anyone. But nothing is revealed,
that’s the main thing—with the poet owing
no explanation, meeting the challenge
to be dust not manure.

The Social Contract in the US

I suppose the Social Contract
still operates in the United States—
our house hasn’t been set on fire because of our Black

Lives Matter sign—yet.
Disabled or retired friends still get their social security checks.
The Social Contract—

all people shall have the same rights—
survives to an extent in spite of all the hatred
spewed on TV and by the White-House

occupant, and of the inevitable disorganization of the progressive left.
Because I’m a white-
male property-owner, the Social Contract

protects me and people like
me—lucky and fat.
If I were black,

I might be arrested and shot
for jay-walking—my confirmed practice because it’s safer
than walking in front of cars. So far, the Social Contract
works, if you’re not hispanic, native, female, or black.

Morphine for the Mining Accident

I know that I’ll never grow old,
but I’ve been trying to learn patience and tolerance.
Why? To boost my pain-threshold.

Will you love me when I mold?
That would require more patience and tolerance
than you could ever muster, even if you lived to be as old

as Methuselah (now he was old!),
well-commended for the patience and tolerance
with which he bucked his pain threshold

to live nine hundred years, all told—
years in which no gal had the patience or tolerance
to give-in to his tired old

pleas to pass the bowl—
all patience and all tolerance
realized in a pain threshold

that was plumb out of control.
But I’m borne on the wings of patience and tolerance
to the land where we’ll never grow old.
I’m in the fold!

Remembering the Beats

Think of being a fiction-writer like Kerouac—
all your characters are modelled on your friends.
How would it feel to be one of Jack’s

friends, like Gary Snyder or Allen Ginsberg—
the material that came to hand
for the fiction-writer Kerouac.

Is it from lack of imagination that a fiction-
writer depends so much on their friends
for characters? Jack’s

best character was Dean Moriarty,
modelled on his crazy friend
Neal Cassidy, whose whole life was a fictional

exploit, driving the bus Further with all those acid-
freaks—Mountain Girl and Gretchen Fetchin’
and all. They even spent an afternoon with someone Jack

never met—Timothy Leary—but he was a drag.
They jumped back into Further and returned to Frisco.
Think of being a fiction-writer like Kerouac—
typewriter-Jack.

Love's Indirection

If I risk annoying and inconveniencing you
by sending you songs and such,
that must mean I really love you.

Some might advise me to spare you
the embarrassment of asking me to stop.
By sending you songs anyway, I show I really love you—

which makes it even worse:
it’s an awkward posItion I’ve put
you in—if you’re annoyed and inconvenienced,

I’m not surprised, and I hope you
don’t mind too much
my intrusive love for you, all too

evident in the way I pester you
day after day with my rich
attentions. If you feel annoyed and inconvenienced,

I trust you’ll let me know, but instead
you reward me by saying something nice.
You see my willingness to annoy and inconvenience you.
You know I really love you.

I Wish I Had Those Records Now

What right has any man to talk?
Permission must come from the goddess.
How far did I walk

yesterday, measured in hopscotch
squares? I was going to take a photo, but the goddess
distracted me somehow, so I’ve no right to talk. “Walk” 

and “talk” tie a fabulous yoke
for a team of sparrows pulling the goddess-
wagon. I walked

up above the river, but again took no photos.
I had already messaged the goddess
about “Tecumseh Valley” by Townes Van Zandt.

I talked through that song, and also “Across the Great
Divide” by that goddess-
song-writer, Kate Wolf. I could have bought

both Kate Wolf and Townes Van Zandt at Cheapo Records
back in the 1980’s, if the goddess
had granted me talking rights—
only a ten-minute walk.

Easy Come, Easy Go

Always doing everything the easy way—
I can’t stop celebrating my life.
I’m losing people, but that’s OK.

“Losing” and “loving” are almost the same word,
I think. One implies
the other, when I choose to do everything the easy way,

singing my song and having my say,
living my life at the knife-
edge and exhausting people, but that’s OK.

The question is, when will I have been doing everything the easy way
for long enough? Wouldn’t it be a big relief
if I just quit and did everything the hard way

for a change, groaning and praying
like Job? The extent of Job’s grief
is impossible to navigate beyond, but that’s OK.

Some fine day
everyone is gonna realize what a breath
of fresh air I am when I do my thing the easy way.
I’m loving people, but that’s OK.

Are We in Kansas Yet?

Annals of ruby-slippered clogging:
I needed foot-percussion
on "Diggy Diggy La and Diggy Diggy Lo,”

so I went looking
for a rubber band to bind a tin
of Altoids to my clogging

right foot—when what should I spy
but a ruby-colored bag with ribbon-
handles! Diggy Diggy La

loved Diggy Diggy Lo. Everyone
knew he was her beau.
I could slip my clogging

right foot into the bag, Altoid tin
under my toes and beat my foot
on my cedar-deck floor as I sang Diggy Diggy

La loved Diggy Diggy
Lo. No one else could ever show
so much love
for Diggy Diggy Lo.

Property Damage

Hannah Arendt says more Jews would have survived
if they’d raised more hell,
but few had the will to try

to topple statues of Bismark or spray
graffiti on the Cologne Cathedral.
More Jews would have survived

if they’d staged more riots
in the ghettos. Life was already hell—
if they tried, what could they lose?

Most gentiles were insisting their own lives
mattered, as if anyone had ever called
their supremacy into question. No resisters can survive

our white democracy,
whiteness insists, though it's a bald-
faced lie. We must try

to defund the enormous whiteness-Reich
we live in (though there are no real white people).
Hannah Arendt says POC will survive
if we all try.

Photo of the Young Roland Barthes at the Beach

Always the self!
said Roland Barthes.
But we’ve already established, the self is an elf.

It can’t be helped—
when I do the math,
I find I’m still myself,

but I so wish I could be someone else—
or No-Self, like Odysseus.
But we’ve already established, the self is an elf—

a pesky spirit in any case,
a cricket on the hearth.
Always myself—

it will make you laugh
when you see the lengths
I’ll go to to identify with my elf.

It’s because I feel safe
knowing my elf is in charge,
not myself.
Roland Barthes had a most engaging elf!

Bonaparte's Retreat

Met a contradance friend on the street last night.
We swung at a distance.
Gents to the right,

gals to the left
of the median. Bad at listening
to the calls—white-throated sparrow in a meadow at night.

Swinging holding each other tight—
old-time love at first sight, when
we both went to the dance that night.

Gents turn left, gals right,
like blackbirds and thrushes.
                                           But now we don’t
see each other anymore because of the covid virus,

though I try to throw my twittering
voice from my lonely porch
out to all my distanced friends tonight,

feeling love-lorn like Tristan
and Isolde—oed und leer the night!
But all my dancing friends are with me tonight,
right left, left right.

Long John Brown and the Fairy Elf

Always singing about myself,
like Jean Jacques Rousseau.
—Oh no, you’re singing about yourself!

you say.—Again with the elf-
rhymes? I’ve done golf and wolf
already. 
             So Little Mary Bell had a fairy in a nut:

they laughed at the Devil for saying singing is a sin—
especially singing about yourself;
and the elf hopped out and the elf

hopped in, and, I’ll bet you half a crown,
the elf flushed Long John’s Devil, howling, down the drain,
not to be seen again.
                                So Long John sang about himself

all day and all night, while the copper-kettle moon
was bright—practicing songs for a big show
that can’t go on now, because the elf

has popped back into their fairy-nut. But don’t give up!
Of all spirits, an elf is most
to be relied on to sing about itself—
themselves, yourself, himself, herself.

Man of No Fortune

What can I do with my remaining time?
Calarel has retired into the woods with her maidens.
I’ll retire too so as not to be a peeping Tom.

Watching in an exhausted frame of mind—
my step’s uncertain and my path is faded—
wondering what I can do with all the time

that remains to me between now and my end.
Can I disguise myself like Odysseus in the bower of maidens—
discovered when he clapped his knees together to catch a ball of yarn.

Penelope weaving and unweaving her skein,
spinning the thread of the nights she’s waited,
while her beloved was spending his time

on other pursuits—blinding
the Cyclops and smoking his moly
root. Was Odysseus a listening Tom

when he made his crewmen
lash him to the mast so that he could hear the sirens?
What can I do with my remaining time?
Only shut the fuck up so I won’t be a babbling Tom!

Last Fervent Aria of Sarastro in The Magic Flute

I’m the cuckold no one knows about.
(Does anyone remember our betrothal?)
Hiding in my last redoubt.

To be redoubtable means there’s no doubt
about you coming through with the proposal,
so you can BE the cuckold no one knows about

in the first place. I gave a mighty shout
like the Israelites in the Battle of Jericho,
rubble raining down on my redoubt.

But that just helped me protect myself better,
underwriting my doubt that the walls
would ever come a-tumblin’ down; and no one knows about

all the troubles that came after that—
the jeers and catcalls.
I took refuge in this grim redoubt,

but only as a way to flout
protocol and etiquette. In these hallowed halls,
I'm the cuckold that no one knows about,
hiding in my last redoubt.

Monsters in the Closet

Shorter rest but better score
(my device rates my sleep each night).
Better REM for sure!

I heard a faint squeaking in my ear—
it was my rapid eye movements projecting colored light
onto my slumber’s screen. I got a better score,

because I was letting my genome’s lore
whisper Strangers in the Night
to me. Better REM for sure!

I'm disappointed that I don’t remember
my dreams better—is the light they try
to shed on my life counted in my score—

or only the monsters I implore
with strobed gaze to stay away from me at night,
the rapidity of my eye movements outracing them for sure?

Only remembering how much I adore
my rest, even without a night light.
My sleep was briefer, but my score was better.
Better REM for sure!

L O L A Lola

All my life drawn to the feminine,
only wishing to share space,
hoping I might be the cute one.

Never with a leg to stand on,
always abashed and out-of-place.
All my life drawn to the feminine

like a stream running
over the landscape toward a crevasse,
never dreaming I was the cute one—

I, engaged in my pedantic, male
fussiness. But my bedazzled eyes never ceased
to gaze upon the feminine.

OK, I was in the rock-and-roll band, the Trojanz—
Tony, Victor, Ramón, and yours
truly—once called “the cute one”

by a student of my father’s. Never so asinine
as not to adore my donkey-face
charmed by the feminine

wiles of Titania, the Fairy Queen.
Was it teenage lust or was it grace?
All my life drawn to the feminine.
I'm not sure I'm the boy, but we're both the cute one.

Spending Down the Accounts

Windy and cold today after temperatures in the ‘90s.

I had to put socks on—LOL!

Sitting here trying to count up my life-equity.

But it’s not the heat, it’s the insanity.

I wish I could take my socks back off and walk into the yard,

but it’s too windy and cold today—after a sultry

week of fires and helicopters.

I was afraid white supremacists were going to burn the house down.

May I count that toward my life-equity—

why I deserve to live easy and carefree,

owning privileges I’m embarrassed to say out loud?

But I wonder if this cold wind

is making me more susceptible to the covid disease,

as if I didn’t have enough to chuckle about

without that—I’m afraid my karma-equity

is about to run out. But I still have tunes to play:

I record them on my Samsung phone with a metronome—LOL.

Praying for temperatures to return to at least the mid ‘80’s.

Sitting here watching my life-equity trickle away.

Sassy Morning Pose

White-throated sparrow with a moth in its beak.
Remembering the Teton range,
I view my own skeleton.—

The Grand Teton is the point of my chest
(point the cross expressed in Jesus,
moth in the white-throated sparrow’s beak),

pointed Mt. Owen my crook’d knee,
Tiwinot my suspended foot—
my very own skeleton, draped

over these gorgeous peaks,
already invested with new
feathers—white-throated sparrow with a moth in its beak.

Remembering for whose sake
the mountains fell and sprang anew—
my fresh morning skeleton

ringing its tuneful bones
on my cedar porch, in full view
of everyone. White-throated sparrow with a moth in its beak—
my lovely skeleton.

People Seem to Like My Photos

You enjoy my eye?

Well, how about my voice?

Can my voice be like an eye?

Looking at clouds in the sky,

cormorants in rice-

paddies, when I use my eye—

remaining inside

where the camera lens

lies, which is the eye

itself—it makes no noise,

though its colors may be garrish

and loud; and even an eye

can speak pain or joy

and sparkle brown or blue, its colors

saturating the world of thou-not-I.

But it’s too shy

to talk. So Schweige

stumm, obstreperous voice!

Be as quiet as an eye!

At Least Poems Can Be Pretty

Nothing for it but continue on.
At least there’s a fifty-mile-per-hour wind blowing ice in my face.
Some day waking to see the dawn?

It’s easier to keep on writing poems
than to help do the work that needs to be done. What excuse
do I have for continuing on?

Another lame question: by whom should the work be done?
I am an old biological-male of the white race,
hoping to wake from my nightmare of whiteness and see a dawn

of humanity. But not exactly pouncing on
chances to promote difference.
Nothing for it but continue on

and not worry about the snakes I tread on.
I only have one thing to contribute, and that’s my prettiness.
I don’t want to wake and see the dawn

if it’s going to be the same old ugly sun.
The dark night suits me fine—I’ll find my place
in it. Nothing for it but continue on,
not expecting to wake to any dawn.

What Do You Mean You Can't? Of Course You Can!

How much of the shattered past can be rebuilt?
We had to cancel all our gigs.
Will we be able to jam in the backyard?

Ain’t it hard, ain’t it hard, ain’t it hard
to walk away and say, Thanks for the figs!
not counting on the past to be rebuilt.

Sifting through the past's old dust and silt,
living in the crater that the hundred-
thousand-ton covid-bomb left in the yard,

plus thirteen blocks of Lake Street burned.
My plans didn’t have a leg
to stand on. The past can’t be rebuilt—

I’ll take a dagger to the heart,
or walk through life on wooden pegs—
NOT!—We’ll jam in the backyard

maybe (if we want to), I’m not sure yet.
The glass is drained—forget the dregs
I can’t rebuild the past out of its shards,
but someday we may jam in the backyard.

Perhaps You'll Plant a Flower

I posted a flower

to cut the ugliness on Facebook.
I was trying to say Fuck you to power.

Some kind of flower power
made me say ugliness not negativity.
I posted a flower

as an inoffensive way to say both P and Not P—
waving my peony while denying
the nasty face of power.

The Latin for deny is negare.
In the game Yogio, to negate a card is to cause it
not be be resolved—like this image of a flower

posted from my cellular.
The flower is the engram, Black Lives Matter,
coloring the white shadow-brain of power

that uses life to negate life.
NOT Black Lives Matter, because All Lives Matter?
POC lives suffocated in life-denying whiteness?
Fuck you to power!

Sweetest Little Baby in Town

Made my day—

finally got word
from Terpsichore re “Say, Darlin,’ Say.”

Terpsichore is a rhythmin’ fay,
my mocking bird.
Say, darlin’, say!

Hadn't heard from them in a few days
(I was taking it hard);
then Terpsichore messaged me and made my day,

letting me know they want to play.
So I made a guitar-
chart in the key of D

so it will be easy (some day,
when the band can rehearse
again) for us all to play

“Say, Darlin’, Say” together: Terps singing high—
Say, little darlin’, don’t say a word;
me answering low—Mama’s gonna buy you a mocking bird.
All together now: Say, darlin’, say!

Train on the Island

I feel like a train stuck on an island.

A train is useless on an island
if it can’t cross to the mainland.

A train should have an itinerary
and a planned destination,
but I’m side-tracked on an island.

There’s no demand for a berth on
a train that can’t leave the station.
It must stoke up its engine and cross, on

some bridge, to the mainland.
But the bridges have a been mined,
they say, train stranded on the island.

And I’m sick, and me and
my gal we fell out, and I can’t
roll the wheel. During the Stalin

purges, the Russian critic Bakhtin
used his manuscript pages to light his
pipe. Train conductor on an island
can’t cross to the mainland.

Groggy Morning Thoughts

Something on Facebook about the White House burning,

Trump in a bunker—
thoughts turning

to the Second Coming:
that baby’s a stinker.
AFL-CIO headquarters burning.

I’m not learning
very much, as I hunker
down in my notebook here, watching

the bobbins pirning,
as old chili-cooking
dudes are bound to do—intestines turning:

Can’t stop what’s coming.
It’s just all-out war.
Well, I guess the White House isn’t burning.

Or is it?—It’s hard to be certain.
I just remember,
a tanker truck drove through a crowd yesterday, setting
my mind burning.