found poem

Working in the basement
Of the CHP officer's home
In Alta Sierra

I looked about
For some random piece of lumber

To help level
The recycling bin I was standing on
To get at loose ceiling wires

"We feel unsafe with them like that"
He'd told me

On a corner mudsill
Between two-by-six studs
I pulled a flat slab of worm-eaten redwood

That served a long time
As grave marker
"This should do the trick" I thought

Hewn into it were the words

Marjory Lucero
Died April 3 1922
Age 17 days

zaca ninety-nine

Were we at our peril
In our silly fiberglass floats
A mile off the coast of Zacatito
Gallivanting among the seagod whales
And their bright plumes of exhale?
Probably not,
But certain we could not be,
And such brinksmanship
Easily translated into high adventure.

-w/ Bill, Baja 1999

san diego

    an inveterate bus-rider I loved the cargo of bright angels, the press of the old woman’s arm to mine is about “all I can bear,” bus that unlike the swirl of cars is going nowhere, sunlight in windows as we pass Lloyd’s Muffler Shop, hiphop bebop black teenager next to me, I fingered the orange hole-punched Transfer like cryptic password money, bones lunge together at brakestop corners, smiling skeletons all, seafloor roadcut by Christ Lutheran Church, towtruck dog barks at me eye to eye way up high, aggressive driver leans hard on horn but disregards heavy horn behind, big-ass accordian bus blocking traffic, kids skip rope in phonewire alleyways, here’s our stop, pigeon-swing House of Pancakes!



-San Diego, february 1995 w/ Steve House
  

pondering

Why are parsons & pastors
So busy selling us more life,
-As in everlasting-
When we'll never have more
Than today?

ah dontcha love religion?

Dan won't let me call
the antagonism
between SRF and Kriyananda
a 'rift'
because clearly SRF has it wrong,
"a bunch of tight-pantied old ladies"

fluke

a kid again
catching snowflakes
on my tongue

bus haiku

(for Rick Perry)

he knows
   he has no chance
      still he runs