WE (Collective)

We
are
respectively
21 / one year older than I (but will look 10 years younger in 10 years)
with hair
brown / reddish brown (like a ginger with a die job)
we live
in San Francisco / in a place ravaged by The Gulf (10 feet below sea level)
not fat
165 / 120 is pushing it (butt the curves are that of a Cadillac)
we study
poetry / the science of psychology (I hope she doesn’t diagnose me crazy)
we work
retail / in the womb of academia (and makes a damn good white Russian)
with eyes
brown / beautiful as a cold pint (poured on van Gogh's Starry Night)
who read
fiction / long hard-backs on disaster stricken regions (snooze)
who listens to
good music / ancient Indian chanting and Buddhist meditations (on vinyl)

who love
each other.

My Hometown

Smells like fresh cut grass in the morning,
and Mexican sweat; because they are too lazy to do it ourselves.
Looks clean and free of drugged out crazies on the streets,
they lock themselves in their homes
and take prescriptions before soccer practice lets out.
Gunshots howl from the speakers of a 42” television,
not through the front door over huddled crying children.
Three cars sit out front, not of an apartment complex,
but of the home of a lonely man.
The bus only makes three stops a day,
next to the IHOP, Denny’s and Walmart,
to drop off numbers on paychecks.
The grocery store is less than a mile away,
so he takes his SUV for a six pack of beer.
The green and white caffeine goddess sits hungrily on every corner,
across from the gas machines and cigarette vendors.
Teachers preach abstinence only education
with three pregnant girls in their class, under the age of 16.
Pee-wee football players with grass stained pants
are taught to hate their opponents and win at all costs.
Beer bellies burst buttons
on expensive looking cowboy shirts.
Children swallow bottles of pills for
medication, recreation, annihilation.

I ran away.

My Ocean Is She

Always rocking

Banging against

Cedar boards of my tiny

Dingy, stuck in the

Expansive ocean, on the verge 

Falling over board,

Getting swept up by

Howling wind leaving small

Incisions in my face from

Jagged salt air;

Kicking waves over my hull;

Laughing, as I tumble

Mashing my face into the wet deck.

No, she does not stop

Only howls louder,

Pushes harder on my shell-

Quietly I pray-

Raging storm

Spitting salty sea breath in my face as I

Topple overboard

Unable to keep my footing

Vision completely blurred as I strike the sharp

Water, the cold dark water,

eXacting her revenge on my body, unable to

Yell, swallowing water, drifting to…

Zzz.

ODE TO THE CANCERETTE/STOGE/SMOKE/NIC STICK/CAMEL/CIGARETTE

Oh cigarette!

How I crave the delicious scent

Of your hash browned innards

Bursting into flames,

Filling the air with your intoxicating smoke

As the sun rises over my coffee.

Oh cigarette!

How I love your chewy cotton ass

The yellow/orange color of sandwich cheese

Sitting on the shelf at 7/11

Dated March 1987.

Oh cigarette!

I need to feel you

Filling my soul

During our quickie between classes.

Oh cigarette.

On the darkest night

Crawling through the city black

You light my path

With cherries burning bright.

But cigarette?

You are hand crafted by the

Machina of The Man

Where your natural beauty

Is pumped full of more chemicals

Than a movie stars face.

And worse yet The Man

Tells us - in big block letters -

His exact intentions.

So they take take take that 5 dollars,

Every single day.

And they take take take another

Life away;

Because The Man

He controls the medication too,

So you pay him to get sick

And also to recoup.

But does he fix this problem?

No!

They drag it out

To take your dough.

 

I am not saying

“Don’t Smoke!”

Please please - puff away

Smoke hand rolled organic cigars

Grown in an urban renegade garden

Springing life from corporate trash.

Please please puff away,

On that silly green smoke;

I am not here to say

“Don’t Smoke”

 

Just think for a moment

Where your cash goes

And make sure they are not pulling it

From your ass and your nose.

 

How Long Will It Take

There is a song,

when put on the stereo I think

immediately:

 

My ex-girlfriends house

naked

smoking a joint

as the sun set behind us.

 

Sweating from the thermometer

105º for the past two weeks…

breaking records.

 

Stale sweat like a girls locker room with a dash of perfume

three dogs, and a guinea pig

dirty sex, twice

old cigarettes and unwashed sheets.

 

Awkward sex in passenger seats,

stuck emergency breaks and annoying shifting knobs

in a car too small for two…

but you sat by me anyway.

 

A cigarette cherry falling on my bare chest

leaving burn rings outlined by…

sloppy sunscreen application.

 

Stale hamburger buns

burnt and charred week old hot dogs

three drops of ketchup from a half used McDonald’s packet…

and drinking wine from the bottle.

 

Slamming espresso Shots

Sucking sweet cigarettes

Suffocating sloppy smooches.

Midnight movies at The Inwood

on Inwood road

at midnight

double feature Rocky Rocky Horror

what a combo – a one two punch to the…

wait, is that a sweet transvestite?

 

Laughing over coffee and cigarettes

for dinner

because really, that was all we could afford,

 

and leaving hungrier than I came

but, getting to see you;

 

reminds me of that song.

For Mary Jane

Twisted and hazy we fell into oblivion,

we found ourselves strung out; on the outskirts

of a town I once knew.

 

Huddled bodies wrapped in cotton shields,

the sand blew over the dunes like tumbleweeds,

twisted and hazy we fell, into oblivion.

 

Sea gulls hung in the air like they were on strings,

street lamps shut off,

in a town I once knew.

 

Our smoke swirled/spiraled/spit from our lips

until the sun stretched over the edge of the ocean,

twisted and hazy, we fell into oblivion.

 

Shops opened with swept sidewalks,

buses hissed and grumbled to life

in a town I once knew.

 

I gather the blanket and paraphernalia,

we walk home twisted and hazy,

we fell into oblivion, in a town I once knew but now

                         know no one.

“A poem is a petition / a petition is a poem”

I don’t want a poem

Flowing from a golden pen

Atop an expensive desk

In a high class East coast dorm room.

 

I want candles burning down

At 3 am as both Bic’s run out

Stranded

Unable to write

Unable to light

Another dirty habit.

 

I don’t want poetry to be spoken

Hiding behind a podium like a politician.

 

I want idealists on bicycles

Shouting poetry from bull horns at pedestrians

While pounding cars and stopping traffic.

 

I don’t want poetry collecting names

At every street corner to win a fight.

 

I want poetry to block Market Street at rush hour

Orange jumpsuits, fake guns and bags over its head,

Just a simple protest.

 

I don’t want poetry

Full of stuffy language

Fluffy metaphors

And puffy pompous bull shit.

 

I want vulgarity/obscenity/sexuality

I want dirty sweaty car seats that stink

Of two day old KFC and sex.

 

I don’t want a petition :

   I want poetry

I don’t want a petition :

   I want protest

I don’t want a petition :

  I want participation.

Crushed Ice

Something just went wrong

                        the ground split in two at his feet,

In the heat of battle

                        in a strange land with idealists all around,

He leapt for the high road

                        made it look easy; running away to follow love,

Not roses and candy underwear

                        the day-in  and  day-out  devotion;  he  made  that,

                                                                                                        Look easy. 

THIRTY PLUS AND TERRIFIED.

Chinese New Year’s parades

With loud red fire crackers snapping

And dragons dancing!

 

They sit locked in a cave,

In the dullest house on our block.

 

Vegetarian bicyclists rioting in the streets

Hurling meat products at cars!

The broken glass stopped them before the cops!

 

In the dullest house on our block,

They sit locked in a cave.

 

Bright poets speaking Truth upstairs,

Neighbors to neon strip clubs

Watch for the City Light!

 

They sit locked in a cave,

In the dullest house on our block.

 

Big naked lesbians on motorcycles

Roaring bright flags and leather

Cheering fans from 3^rd story windows!

 

In the dullest house on our block,

They sit locked in a cave.

 

Dope smoking nuns,

“Bong hits for Jesus”,

And fantastic Technicolor hippies!

 

They sit locked in a cave,

In the dullest house on our block.

 

Six good museums

A hundred more private art studios

And more than that in good graffiti!

 

They sit locked in a cave,

In the dullest house on our block.

 

A tea party in the park

Expensive costumes

Alice, a Rabbit and the Queen of Hearts!

 

In the dullest house on our block,

They sit locked in a cave.

 

The Park

Just the place

Not to mention all the things gathered inside!

 

They sit locked in a cave,

In the dullest house on our block.

 

The Pacific Ocean 20 blocks away

The train to the beach

One block over!

 

In the dullest house on our block,

The sit locked in a cave.

 

Smoking dope on the rooftop of

Hillary Clinton’s campaign office

Above exceptionally attractive poli-sci students!

 

They sit locked in a cave,

In the dullest house on our block.

 

The best vineyards in the world are right next door

Good microbrews in our own back yard

Enough moonshine in basements to blind a republican!

 

In the dullest house on our block,

They sit locked in a cave.

 

Day-life, Night-life, In-between-life

Straight, Gay, Other …

Square, squiggly, simple, sparkly!

 

They sit locked in a cave,

In the dullest house on our block.

 

These people are my housemates, a lonely dreary lot. I live in the dullest house on the block.  They do nothing with their time, and then complain when it is lost.  They lock them selves away, scared to death of talk.  One will not open the windows, so every day is just like night.  They are Hostile/Volatile/Unpredictable monsters with bad habits and worse addictions.  They cannot cook, nor do they clean.  They are gross, disgusting, and obscene.  They bore my pubes, and smell bad too.  I would understand completely if they were blue, but they are anti-blue, as colorless as they are clueless.  They are not young and scared, they are thirty plus and terrified. 

 

Down Town Night Club

I went to a club downtown, out in the states, Florida I think, with a couple friends on a Friday night.  Turns out the other guys did not show up.  I met a couple other people, one of whom -- a man who got me in for a third of the cover because his friends didn't show up either-- whipped out his dick and started smacking a girl he was flirting with on the leg.  He said, while completely exposed and gangling his nuts like christmas bells, "I might not be able to hit your stomach, but I bet I can touch the back of your throat!"  Men are pigs but that must be the greatest pick up line of all time.  We all proceeded in our quest for public intoxication and succeeded admirably.  

GINGER

Her red hair caught my eye from across the station

“Hey.  Hey wait up!”

She ran and hurdled the turn stile,

I fumbled with my ticket as she rounded the corner.

Her black leather jacket masked her small shoulders,

she vaulted the escalator and flew

into the heart of The City.

 

The streets are filled with people,

hundreds of ants crawling over concrete

from one dark hole to another.

I see my vixen jogging barefoot across the lawn,

a fountain and two-dozen pissed off day laborers separate us.

I hurry around the fountain to cut her off at the hedge.

 

She grabbed my arm and kissed me on the cheek.

“Thought I lost you.”

Our feet took us home as we eyed the:

pork sausage, roast duck, fresh sushi, grilled chicken

sitting just beyond reach

inside the glass frames of capitalism.

 

She is wearing coco butter and vanilla

(it never fails to make my jeans tight)

I kiss her neck.

Her hands fumble with the keys,

my hands fumble with her zipper.

Our stomachs growl in unison as the

latch flips / pants fall / couch squeaks.

 

I wake up to banging pots and frustrated curses

flour accents the kitchen counter

her sleeves are rolled up and her hair is unwashed.

I hand her a glass of fresh orange juice and take away the spoon,

“You make it look too easy”

“Will you turn on some jazz?”

“To early for Coletrane?”

“Beautiful”

I kiss her and start flipping pancakes in two frying pans.

 

The front page is filled with

sex / violence / celebrity

I grab the comic section and pop a blueberry with my teeth.

She sits down on my lap

starts picking at my pancakes

so I wrap my arm around her waist.

The coffee pot whistles and I spoon fresh grounds into her

French press

(apparently the only way to make a proper cup of coffee).

 

Our cups sit steaming on the table

with sugar and cream at the ready.

But she wasn’t wearing panties

and my hand around her waist tickled

she got turned on

she stained my shorts

then ravaged me.

The coffee was cold when we came back;

I added ice and Bailey’s and called it a cocktail.

 

It was Sunday so being drunk at noon was acceptable,

some Catholics start “communion” at 6:30 in the morning.

Drinking that early just doesn’t settle well with me,

but a beer or three with lunch does just fine.

She flipped the Coletrane record

fell over the back of the couch

lit a joint and blew the smoke toward the open window

letting in the salty sea breeze.

 

I kissed her toes and her calf’s and her knees

my mouth walking like a spider

a snail trial of saliva from her navel to her neck.

She introduced my lips to the moist end of the blunt

I inhaled.

She wrapped her lips around mine and we exchanged life

from one lung to another,

then she giggled and smoke spewed from both nostrils.

The dog across the street barked

we kissed and enjoyed the sun.