bicycle

Perverse the Ludd
     turning pedal & chain
          down rough-patched

ditchtender backroads
south of Colusa

-joined by frolic
     of redwinged blackbirds
          fencepost to fencepost-

Perverse enough to imagine
this twelve-speed sculpture
as apex of human
engineering

A Date with Death

A date with death
On the high Wyoming plateau

Premonition in dreams,
December when the ground lay bare
And sunlight shone golden
On vast windy rangelands, 

Out of Rock Springs
Ominous snowclouds gather from the North
Sioux death-rattles in the bottom of the mind-

The pickup out of gas
Miles down some wrong turn
Where the road ends
Under swaying aspens

the poet & technology

     For myself
     The strident success of cybernetic technology we experience in these latter days represents only a continuation of its own foundations: refinement in the arts of acceleration & abbreviation.
     For myself
     & many others technology can be esteemed only when it turns that foundation on its head; rather than add to the stress & consumerism surrounding us it opens new vistas in human consciousness and embellishes our rapport with vast & wonderful Garden we call earth.

Q

       Last time
you were single-minded
                about anything?

Edward's Xing

Home by back roads
from North Columbia
in the warm mizzling April dark
Mazda floatingon headlight mists
wet gravel turns & straights-
glimpse of pine-tops
band of moonlight
over the dim pastures-
Coasting the river canyons
I caught the ninth inning
a fuzzy faraway Giants game
fade out by the bridge.
Stoppt in the middle
killed the engine
leaned on the rail
lost in the starry beauty
of deep Yuba night

handyman

Was he a plumber
Who wrote verse on the side
Or was he a poet
Who wrenched pipe & sighed?

           *  *

Whenever a felon
    lands in the can
He lists his employment
    as 'handyman'

         *   *

Thirty years in the trades
     comes the recognition
Few problems are orphans
     most have cousins & uncles

        *    *

Rather than return home
And get the ladder I forgot
I take crazy chances
Balancing on lawnchair & flowerpot

-gutter-sniping

livingston road

After a day of cold steady spritz
How the universe of pine-needles
Shines & dazzles
In the morning sunlight!
It erases any whisper of the past.
Pendant raindrops by the thousand
Sparkle red & green
Before a slight blush of cold air
Loosens them
And fills the forest with more shinings.
An ancient form of christening,
Yet speaking one word:
New.