Wednesday, August 11, 2010

Gypsy

Through fate and love our paths crossed
I remember under the moolit sky
Our eyes spoke over the river no words
Branded my heart to this day

The water between us your mother carried you away
I ran back to the caravan and headed East they say
And now back westward today
If she’s gone off to rest
May peace shine it’s light all her days

We stopped a while to breathe the air
Play a tune
Wash our clothes

Your home sat still like a rock by the river
Animals at your command
I left my gloves of leather
For you to find in the night

Koan # 1

Avalokiteshvara
I always find my bodhis in the street
The first sip is joy
The second gladness
And the third serenity

Number four is madness and the last ecstasy

The sparrow hops along the veranda again
Feet wet laughter solemn
Rocks are space
I’m mostly human making kindling
An gobbling down food
Paramita of Dana you can’t fall offf a mountiain
When you get to the top keep climbing

Zen lunatics rucksack wanderers in the zendo
Making up haikus reciting koans
Walkin in Tamalpais

American Taliban

Borderline mission across the river we started
Tacit agreement to leave it at that
On one would fire the very first round
Till the generals retired to the old home town
Shallow like the river runnin across our eyes
Try to make things clear see through better eyes

He said take off the gloves on this one
They let him freeze and bleed
Freedom of religion depends on what you believe

When I went over the border I went to training there
Fighting the red backed Alliance
I knew something was wrong when they called him a killer
Put his picture on the front page
The timing wasn’t right just like all the others
Striking fear in the souls of the world

Unimpressed with the devil who turned us upside down
Not academic or spiritual that was my take on it

I was really impressed with Malcolm X so I took up a gun in Allah’s defense
Then I went to learn Arabic pretty soon in Pakistan memorizing the Koran

What I didn’t tell anybody was I went over the mountain
Underwent some training there
By our US funded allies caught up in a battle
Held and starved as prisoner until US troops saved me

Thought it was all over then Rumsfeld gave the order
Take the gloves off he said
And they put me in the cold
Gunshots left untreated
Strapped down and naked

The picture spread all over
The son to terror’s Godfather
Charged with treason intent to kill
A soldier’s reason and Allah’s will

Looking Through the Stacks

I always listen to what no one else does
Don’t make no reference to the TV
Lookin through the stacks to find a good read

I lost my privilege at the library
They wouldn’t loan me Don Quixote
Now im thinkin of layin my money down
Lookin through the stacks to find a good read

You can go and do just as you please
I turn away rom what’s on now
Nobody did anything to phase me
Now you can just erase me
Lookin through the stacks to find a good read

House of Clowns

Livin in the house of clowns
I know some people who’d dig it
Don’t get me wrong
Just a big change form solo trapeze
Movin from ringmaster on down

Lady Stardust

Lady stardust I see a distant twinkle in your eyes.
Under the billboard checking the hood
Fired one up sparks fire for free
Something grounded me in reality

People on the streets like little satellites
Orbiting around and around
Some girls voice from America never heard such a sound.

Asleep you find some things you hide
Open eyes can’t see
Somehow we know in dreams reside
The key to misery

In daylight hours we toil in vain
The nighttime promise shines
Gold and silver
Flowing wine
Running in our veins

The trees we climbed the conjured hills
The pastures with dandelion snow
Like children round the circle sing
Round and round we go

Crooked Line

The myths of old don’t work no more
You know we’ve got to bring those gods down
Stories told of knights so bold
Kings rattling their crowns

King of Thieves and the Queen of Hearts
Spewing a crooked line
Turn your head on a dime
Now way to change your mind
Walkin that crooked line

Get out the rake
Not too much of a disgrace
Leaves fallin on your face
Underneath the dying sun

Another purge in sight
Coup de tat tonight
Troops rollin to the border
Wake up from your slumber
Far too many in number
An unknown chart in the street today
I wanted to ask what they were saying.

After the flood the gates swung wide
Everyone watching for the rain in the sky
Not a drop fell

I hide in the oak maple and pine
Starting to choke on the assembly line

Seven Generations

Just like that river
You cant step in the same one twice
Keeps on movin
With every roll of the dice
Im not bettin
You’ll clean up what you let behind
That’s for seven generations down the line

Seven generations down the line
How will the look back on us in time
Like some kind of medicine or some other kind of wheel
Turning and turning
My reflection in the pool put me in my place
Predator cruel move with animal grace
Then I saw you there ripples showed what I had in my mind
Seven generations down the line

You can tame the beasts but they stil wourk out of their cells
Here on the outside they don't care how you’ve felt
I’ll put my hand in those cages one more time
Seven generations down the line

Saturday, July 24, 2010

Dreams So Real

Klamath Falls on Friday morning
20 degrees of solitude.

Flatbed gypsy in gray polyester
Not surprised by The Pig
He was anonymous and so were we.

Journeymen walking rows.

Pendleton
World's largest catfish 1.5 tons 21 feet long.
Umatilla River by Ron Gollyhorn a logger
From Ukiah down wind from the cattle ranch of
George Antioch.

Through the Blue
Mountains by La Grande
Emily stood tall.

Around and around in Portland
Bridge over San Kwai
Piper, Stephanie and Jane
Warm with many lists.

Work to be done
What about the little one?

Powerful lands
Stillness and peace
The slow work of Earth.

Nice Picture

ad inhaesio

Drunk with passion, ruled by motive.

There is a picture
Of a man in a yellow raincoat
Standing on his capsized dinghy.
One arm covers his eyes
While the other holds
The lantern in the rain.

Indigenous
We paid witness to Venus
In daylight
Shining
By a slivery
Silver moon.

The clouds are different
Around here as though their
Vapor was determined by
Trees and brush or the
Juttin rock.

They absorb the colors of
The ground
For their own beautiful use.

We were disappointed
Big light over the hills
Orange brightness flashing
On and off.

We pass closely by but see nothing.

Then from behind us after a time
A refinery burning
Petroleum and we thought
It might have been a saucer.

Never again for seventy-five
Thousand years yeah
Nice thing to know.

The Pig

Flights of fancy
A truckload of thought
Packed so nicely
The idea runs !!

Bless the Pig
Symbol of all good.

Going West

Halloween
On the road to Denver
Near Boot Hill
Where myth and reality
Converge
The Pig blazes through the
Cellophane membrane
Toward antipathy.

Tontitown, Arkansas,
home of Bessie the
ton o tits cow.
We thought this utterly ridiculous
But we weren't there.

Beginning to see the outline
Of the Delectable Mountains.
Nebraska just seems like a barnyard with
Barren trees and the
Smell of antiseptic restrooms
Icy roads left unsalted.

Denver 248 miles

10:15 a.m.
The road looks like one of
Frankenstein Monsters' neck scars
All stitched up and life-inflicted.

Horses and cattle put
Together in fields
Full of mud huts
Villagers squandered
Left abandoned.

Past the Applegate drain near Paxton Road
Entering Keith County and
Mountain time zone now 9:30 a.m.
Woop Woop !!

South Platte River on Big Mac Drive.

True love ain't hard to see

Now these are hills
The jailbird takes the rap
half a mile from Ovid
The Metamorphosis takes place
And The Pig flies away.

Red Lion Road
Sagebrush troopers
Storming to rainforests
And over deserts.

Iliff and Beaver Crossing
Crook, Sidney, Sterling.


Butch to the rescue
Bad voltage regulator
Can sing some grief and sorrow
Sunday November fifth
On the road to Fort Collins
Debbie Does Donuts topless donut shop
Geraldo show was there.

News items:
Antone Wood, aged 11, the county's youngest inmate
The Ute and the Knight family with Nighthawk lawyer
Boulder tribes looking to reclaim ancestors' bones.


--Fall 1989

Thursday, July 22, 2010

Czeslaw

I am so sorry Czeslaw
I know you won the prize.

Someone stuck a feather
deep inside your
road-side dog.

But it was a gift for me
Probably from a Lady I'll never see.

It was in the space between
Salvation and the damnation and
Pursuing a goal.

In a funny way
Czeslaw
Things started meshing together.

The feather, your words, the song of death
And so I crossed myself with
the feather and
examined its silvery spine in
The light of my lamp.

Tuesday, July 13, 2010

This is For the Ones That Didn´t Get Away

This is for the ones
That didn´t get away
Grown large over time
Escaping nets
Fame spread around school and
In tales of old fishermen

This is for the ones
That didn´t get away
Jumping over boats
Shiny flips
Teasing adversaries and their sons
Just a glint
On the horizon dips

This is for the ones
That didn´t get away
Blackened not
By Creole mens´hands
But crude oil barons
Shoving barrels
Tearing at our backs
Giving protegé commands

Sarasota, June 2010