regret

“Sometimes we just don’t think”
she tries to console me
when I relate my story
of standing on Gary’s dining table
to replace the overhead light there--

“Sometimes we just don’t think”
when I wince
reading the New Yorker article
about Snyder’s Japanese house
with its Shoes Off rule--

Then she rubs it in
by pointing to the page cartoon
a field dog scowling
at the hunter who’s downed a pheasant-
“Now Look What You’ve Done!”

Pine Street wag

"...it's not the despair that gets you- it's the hope"

haldane quote

"...the universe is not only queerer than we imagine, it is queerer than we can imagine."

favorite roadsigns

No
 Routine
  Snow
   Removal         -Scott's Flat Rd



Semi-Trucks
Thirty Feet
Kingpin to Axle
Not Advised      -Highway 84, Woodside

question

(for Steve House)

Where's the game played--
   Atom-spin
      Or galaxy arrayed?

work radio, adios

Remodeling the basement in Berkeley
the old plug-in radio gives up the ghost
and gets tosst like common rubbish
on the backyard plywood heap
taking with it the archaeology
     of my mind--
the summers at John's
when Cesar & Pancho listened
to Mexican ballads
shoveling in the bright sunshine,
the KNBR Gary Radnich days
in the Oakland hills 
laughing out loud with sawdust in my hair
or KRFC blaring Jagger
as I rolled Navajo White on walls
in China Basin;
      dusty shop days
nothing happening in a Giants' game
or getting wet
forgotten in the back of the truck--
Most of all I remember
the day Lindsey gave it to me
because I glommed onto it
doing odd jobs around her house,
beat radio that formerly belonged
to brother Bruce who perished
   six years ago
      in a pre-dawn trailer fire

Lost in Mendo

Like old chowderhead
One presses on where the pavement
Ends,
All the C A U T I ON signs
Riddled with bullets
But you persist
Following the gravel
Curving through tunnels of oak & madrone,
Across beat creosote bridges
Where no water runs,
Further & further into switchback mountains
Winding out in low gears for many miles
To the inevitable fork
And of course, all the arrows
Missing.
Nothing to do but guess south?
On Mendocino County Road 431
Miles of rude harrowing timber access,
You've no idea where you're headed
Sliding in dust to the axles,
Lurching over potholes sticks & loose rocks,
The rusted Ford pickup rolled in the ditch--
Then suddenly the close trees
Open to bluffs & ocean headlands
Stark bright golden star
Shining over white Pacific fogbank
Far as the eye can see.

thief

on the scrap-wood ladder
   I push stolen apples
       inside my shirt

-Santa Barbara, 1982

d h lawrence

"...man has invented the machine & now the machine has invented man."

*    *    *    *    *    *    *

"...man as yet, is less than half-grown.  Even his flower-stem has not appeared yet.  He is all leaves & roots, without any clue put forth.  No sign of bud anywhere.
   Blossoming means the establishing of a pure, new relationship with all the cosmos.  This is the state of heaven."

number

Science chuckes
   at the old devotions
Oblivious to the worship
  of its own numeric notions

ring of bone

barefoot
  she brooms snow
    off Zendo steps

--Carole K.


working alone
softly I gonged
the big iron densho

-2005

On the dusty sill
Of Gary's outhouse
Livy's History of Rome


-2006

Steve comment

When I told him
How careful I had to be
Boring six-by-six roughsawn beams
At the Ring of Bone Zendo
To run exterior conduit for lights
Measuring like five times
To make sure it came out right
What did he call it?
"Titz on the Ritz"

spared

Thank God
I’ve been spared
The cyber-gene
That would have cubed me
For thirty years
In Hanford’s
Research machine-

hell-lo tech

Once upon a time
We charmers held life
In the palm of our hands
Sweet world come 'round to us
In song dance flower sunlight--
Then Google!    comes along
With Facebook iPad & Smartphone
And we wash on the margins
Inept & alone

Baja advice

"...believe me,
you don't want to be held
against a chainlink fence like I was
with a machine-gun under your chin
at an Army checkpoint,
hearing about two years
in a Mexican prison--
get rid of your ganja"

-Mr Jenner @ Desert Inn

Punta Gorda

I knew she'd get lost
When she set out on her long
Dawn-time beachwalks
But I didn't think
She'd be gone for days

eduardo

"what's your dream job?"
she asked,      astonished
at his answer:
"delivering crates of oranges
from a flatbed truck"

Jeffers quote

         Or as mathematics, a human invention
That parallels but never touches reality, gives the astronomer
Metaphors through which he may comprehend
The powers and the flow of things:  so the human sense
Of beauty is our metaphor of their excellence, their divine
       nature: ----like dust in a whirlwind, making
The wild wind visible.

New 'Ku

carhorns behind
   as I slow to watch
      pasture-geese land          -McCourtney


gunpowder-smell
after street fireworks--
Feliz Ano Nuevo!


through cracks
   in the old sidewalk
      dandelions appear       -chester st


every sailor's delight-
to trim down-wind
ride your big kite       -Zaca


frozen blackbird
dead by the tracks
catching fine blown snow     -Utah

snorkeling Zaca

hundreds or thousands
     of silver merelings

scatter in every direction
as I surface,

little sunstreaks
transmitting some kind of joy

     gone
          oceanic

debate

Pro-nuclear types
Like to label critics
As 'wanting to return us
To the cave'
But another Fukushima
Should do the trick

wondering

   If buttered toast always lands buttered side down and a cat always lands on its feet, what would happen if you tied a piece of buttered toast on the back of a cat and tossed it?

   What does Geronimo say when he jumps out of a plane?

   Why didn't Noah just kill those two mosquitos?

   You know that little indestructible black box installed on aircraft? -why don't they just make the whole plane out of that stuff?

   Why is that when you're looking for an address, you turn the radio down?

   How does the guy who drives the snowplow get to work?

   Beware of thy wishes: they will come true           -edward abbey

   If Einstein had discovered creme rinse instead of relativity, would he be Rod Stewart's brother?

backwoods heat

country-speak
for a woodstove's cheap friends-

"fifty bucks" says the ad,
"for a pickup load of mill-ends"

dangerous gift

whale vertebrae gift
   but he informs me
      I'm now a felon

-Bill

hayden on hippies

"...now I know all of you just want to return us to the cave-
But I have news for you!  We've already returned to the cave- we just drive them around now."

-Tom Hayden, Alameda Park, Santa Barbara, 1979

Bert J

"forty years of buzz
         turned his liver into was"

mattingly quote

"Who can beat Obama?
Any mammal that can file--

What about Republicans?
      there's the rub--
Every one's a reptile"

when it's OK to kill

"...There's a consensus that it's OK to kill when your government decides who to kill.  If you kill inside the country, you get in trouble.  If you kill outside the country, right time, right season, latest enemy, you get a medal."

-Joan Baez

"you can no more win a war than you can win an earthquake"     -Jeannette Rankin

new year's haiku

"tell me again,
why do we want the blue guys
to beat the red guys?


-tricia on football

conversation

I got indignant
After I asked him
Where he was headed

After he put a wad of bills
In my hand
Repaying my loan--

"Going to Heavenly, Dude
For some snowboarding"

But it's all manmade snow this year,
It's fake!

"Dude" he replied,
"I'd get shot out of an elephant's ass
If that's what it takes
To have some fun--"

-for Dan Sweigert