Short Story

I was having drinks with Keith Dowman last night, and,

as I was leaving, intoxicated, I slipped and fell down on

a slope by his house....it was a happy fall into dead branches

and soft earth... I thought.. "I fell into a nest provided by angels."

Living In Golden Brilliance

What else could you call or  see

in an alki, old, just coming in

to what he should have been,

but, didn’t know how to get there,

so, juked around the obstaces,

anything that got in the way,

to clear field of bare perception?

How’s that for a question?

Handsome Woman

I remember some men calling

some woman handsome, maybe

one of the few word occasions

when men forgot their sexual

misogyny for a brief moment.

They Can't Hurt Me Anymore

I went through their gauntlets,

around some of them…all my

plumbing bosses yelled at me…

I got through that….it was good

to help me understand my own 

anger…

I accomplished remaining human

while the world flailed and twittered

around me in it’s dance of death.

So, they can’t hurt me anymore,

the transparent ogre materialists,

the robotic paranoid rationalists,

the hyperbolic conversationalarialists,

the sand lions,

the empty balloons,

T.V. zombies,

shopping mall corpses,

redundant Emcees,

privileged power junkies,

bloodless buisness vampires,

No, I acomplished more than they did…

I accomplished more than nothing.

Ars Poetica

It doesn't matter what words you say.
It's what they do when they hit your mind.
Natural event... beyond the natural effect,
there is no meaning.

Attempted Suicide

I met a yogi from India who told me
I would die in bed, so, that's where I
spend all my time now.

Easier Said Than Done

I remember listening to that song...mowing the family lawn...

and this incredible cute 14 year old blond

would somehow accidentally often while I was 

mowing the lawn

walk up the street to her house a block away..

maybe three times our eyes met, and she smiled...

I turned on the gas....and mowed furiously.

Acting And Meditating

The path of meditation accomplishes

what acting, the experience of being a

character, does naturally.

Here’s a myth…it’s difficult to experience

non ego…takes hours of meditation…no.

All it takes is the willingness to be a

character on stage. There’s no way that

can happen if you’re dragging the baggage

of yourself along with it. You get into the 

character….it takes a while to see that you

can be that role…when that happens…while

it’s happening….there is no discursive thought….

just the next line....and the person you're
pretending to be, who is as real as the person
you think you are.

Confidence in your role

brings a satori…a rush sometimes.

The problem with acting is that it does’t

dissolve ego….just postpones it.

Harsh example….and I loved Robin….

Did he kill himself because he was losing

his time on stage?

Father/Son Talk

My father once told me

(he didn’t…I’m making this up)

“If you don’t control yourself,

people will think you’re crazy.”

I said   “But, Dad, if I control 

myself, I’ll be like them and

think I’m sane.”

Announcement

This is to announce the formation of an

organization to quell manspreading.

Manspreading is a psychological 

condition where big, fat male slobs

ignore the society around them and

take up too much space, "spreading"

themselves unconsciously,  both
physically and psychologically,
thus infringing on the space of others

The Society for the Prevention of

Manspreading has been established.

The cause of manspreading has been

determined as what is now being called

“male pattern stupidity”. Containment

teams are being formed, primarily in

urban areas where manspreading has

reached epidemic proportions due to

the overconsumption of fast food.

Help Stop The Spread Of Manspreading!

Support The Containment Team!

Top Ten Questions You Never Want To Have To Answer If You’re Married

10   “Isn’t this the best sex you ever had?”

9     “What would you do if I died?”

8     “Are you almost done?”

7     “Where’s my bracelet?”

6     “Are you happy?”

5     “Do you know where the children are?”

4     “What do you think of Daddy?”

3     “What do you think about seperate vacations?”

2     “Is it OK if my brother moves in?”

1.    “Isn’t this the best sex you ever had?”

I Can’t Say I Can Love You Now

I’ve always loved all of you, but,

I can say you’re making it more

difficult to like you now.

You’re making it more difficult

for you to like each other now.

Your only fault is that you won’t

wake up to what’s happening now.

Not just you, my children, friends,

so many have been lost.

And, if you think I’m wailing drunkenly

about my personal experience now,

just wait ’till the train runs out of track. 

All These Thoughts

Flickerings across my mind

are not amazing by now, just

the juice of what goes on.

Like, it’s not my mind anymore,

not my world, which I realized

long ago.

I realized my mind wasn’t me,

in fact, the me that I thought 

I was was just a mirage.

I still go on, I yak, I eat,

I appear in public on the 

stoop of the coffee house

for moments in the morning,

my public service…

and most of my thoughts dribble

into the gutter like spittle…so much

for the Western World.

sorry, that was something I would

have written if I was a poet….

and that is as far as my heart 

breaks tonight

Do You Have Any Idea How Stupid I Think We all Are?

It won’t take

very many words

because, otherwise,

it would be a redundant 

negative, so, as an 

intelligent yeast that 

proliferates

and consumes it’s 

environment, 

all I can say is

bon appetite.

Sweet Christmas Story

My grandpa told me this sweet little Christmas story.

When he was young, his family was very poor.

One night, his father took his shotgun out side and fired it.

He walked into the house to the sight of his startled kids.

He said

"No presents this year...Santa committed suicide."

The Unexamined Life Is A Big Mistake

This is one of those poems

where the title is the punchline,

which is the goal of all my poems.

Many poems, for me, are just

filling in the lines…of course,

having a boffo ending line is good.

That way, the mirror is complete.

Shades of doing what I’m describing.

Hard to bring theatre into poetry.

Delicious when tears mix with joy.

Babylon Brook

Is what I feel sometimes I am…

hiding in the reeds somewhere

where the gurgle I sometimes

recognize as my voice is sending

somekind of message out where 

there are people. It really has an

ancient feel….earth and water in

proximity and mixed…as the 

metaphor for my mind.

Trapped in a simulacrum of what

I thought I should be, or, a replica

of what I thought I once was.

(That’s a twenty buck phrase there,

Dude, step up)

A brook, with it’s rocks is like a Calder

gazebo, where the motion is constant, 

frozen….like so many people’s lives.

American Professional Football An Editorial

I’m not one of these bleeding hearts that feels

professional football is too violent…in fact, quite 

the opposite. I feel there should be real violence

in the sport to reflect properly the violent nature of

our American society (Well, yours…I moved to 

Mexico…what do you think I am, stupid?) 

Random murder is becoming a national passtime, 

so, our games should reflect that fact. Of course,

ice  hockey is pretty much covered. But, I’d like to

propose a few rule changes for professional 

football to bring it up to date with the American 

experience, while also adding zest to the game 

At the end of the game, the player on the loosing 

team that blew the big play should be sacrificed

to the fans. Of coure, this will take a period of 

acceptance for the viewing audience. It could begin

with a season ending injury, and go further from 

there. The benefit to the sport would be that every

game would have serious consequences…

no more shitty games or unnecessary hand
wringing over standings. And, depending on
fan approval, any limbs that get cut off can be
thrown into the stands as souvenirs.

Another idea I had, I call  “option 45”. In this case,

each team would have one play a game where they

arm any player with a 45 calibre pistol with one

bullit in the chamber. The gun is only used on

offense, and not during the last ten minutes of 

the game. The player would have the option

to shoot an opposing player. The coaching of 

this option would be a bit tricky, because if you 

shoot your opponent's best player, he’s gonna
shoot  yours which adds a delightful gangsta/
Hatfield/ McCoy aspect to the game…
so American!

These are just a couple of suggestions, but, from 

them you can see the possibilities. This kind of

play could be instituted in World Cup Soccer,

where it already sort of exists. Let’s go with the

strenghts of our (your) society!  Too soon?

December 21…My Father’s Birthday

No wonder I’m drunk…

I couldn’t remember when it was….

so, I had to be drunk all year long

so I wouldn’t miss it.

My moher would have gottten that joke.

At least, that’s what I’m making up

in happy remeberance of my father…

…who taught me to ride a bike…

..who wouldn’t tell me about the Mafia…

…who told me he would drink olive oil

so he could go out and drink and not get

drunk….who told me of people he saw

get killed on the streets of Chicago 

when he was a boy…who I worked with

digging tree stumps and building limestone

walls outside our house…who didn’t 

understand me when I was old enough

to understand…who told me he loved me

just before he died, and, I him.

No wonder I have any character.

Zen Moment

I saw a sign when I
was driving over a bridge
that read
"Slippery When Slippery".

I had to pull over for a while and get out of the car. 
Suddenly, a white GTO screeches to a stop...a red neck 
jumps out...he's wearing NASCAR clothes...he runs over 
to me, slaps me in the face, and, just as quickly, jumps back

into his car and is gone. 
That's when I realized the world is my teacher.

Three Stooges Zen

On The Road

They said on the road

but they didn’t say where to.

For them it was the path that

mattered because they were 

in the process of waking up,

and they knew it intuitively.

They showed their generation

what was possible.

Most only rely on ruts.

Truck Dancing

I was a plumber,

drove big trucks.

I used to dance in 

my driver’s seat

from job to job to

the radio music.

I thnk the only ones

that noticed me

were the ones that

gave me the finger.

Meditation Is Work

Many people who try meditation

say they can’t because their minds

are too distracted, not realizing that

the distractedness is the reason to

meditate, to develop clarity of mind.

So, they give up, because they 

expected the heavens to open in

the first half hour. Many teachers

have said that meditation is manual

labor, putting yourself on a cushion

and following your breath, labeling 

thoughts as thinking. The closest 

thing it reminds me of is when my

family would spend an afternoon

pasting S&H Green Stamps into

books. Boring, repetitive, and. in

the beginning, looking at the 

dresser drawer full of stamps,

seemingly endless, times ten

because I was a kid. That’s why

you need to know why you’re

meditating before you even start.

It's a life long endeavor.

Improvising Your Life

Why not?

Anyone that realized

anything did.

When will you take control

of your life?

HEY!

Improvisation means

you have to make it up 

on the spot.

that’s so natural….

HEY! We all do it

in brief moments

when we’re cornered…

Why not take that as 

an anthem?

Tiny Dancing

My first wife was an expert in 

hardly moving when she danced,

which meant you had to watch her

to see she hardly needed to move,

which is all you needed to see.

Amazing what we hear in a whisper,

see in a glance. I fell in love just noticing

her back as she walked up the stairs.

No World Order

One more addiction and I’m outta here…

And the next one that says “A man of your age!”

gets a right to the chin.

People are snapping like popcorn in hot oil

all over the USA. Does this really come as much

of a surprise to anyone? And when did you think

you might wake up? Kerouac felt his vision of

America was pure. I believe he was right, for

the short span of innocent time as America licked

it’s wounds and took over the world. There was

a gap when people in power, mostly, didn’t know

what to do with it. When they killed JFK,

the government became made men.

Drag Yourself Out Of Coma

Dance to the music if you can find it.

Give a speech to the public if you’ve

got a mind…take off your clothes and

get arrested covered in flowers…they

won’t taser you for that.

Anything you do in a mall is ok…just

run into a changing room when the 

security guard puffs around a corner.

Uncivil disobedience…but, funny!

There doesn’t need to be a militant

message…the disruption is the

isinglass.

Things Not On My Bucket List

I saw The Doors on acid.

I wrote a poem the first word

of which was “Hitler”.

I met a Mahasiddha when

I was twenty two.

Liszt “Les Preludes”

Hitler listened to this the night

his armies invaded Poland.

This was a leitmotif of Ming.
the Merciless, of the

Flash Gordon serial movies

of the thirties. It’s got legs…

all I’m saying…

My father showed me where

Buster Crabbe trained in

Chicago.

Botoxin

Oh, they left that out,

the warning that whatever 

you do to make yourself

more beautiful has an 

equal and opposite reaction.

Confessions Of An Alcoholic # 1234….

It ain’t so bad, and I don’t know

why you're not all here..now…sorry,

I lied…yes I do.

But, I lost a train of thought….

I guess I’m almost out of track,

not off track, no, I know where

my lines are laid.

I spent a weekend in San Miguel,

where Neal ran out of railroad ties 

to count up.

This was going to be a serial

confession, leading into a serial on

cable, leading to oblivion of the real

lost horizons of people that really

feel they have it made.

Maybe they do, for now, sure they

do…Cosby did. I love you all, but,

you make it hard for me to like you.

Belief

You can believe in Santa

or, the tooth fairy, and, it’s

kinda nice for kids.

When you start getting into

Gods of the various brands,

it ups the ante, to say the least.

Even if you say you don’t believe,

you believe in that…only when

the stakes aren’t too high.

Seeing is not believing, it’s

seeing…

no one ever told you that.

Shed

They used to take some of us

out back there when we were bad,

and whack us on our butts or wherever

so we could learn there were some

bad ideas we should shed.

They took us out back because they

couldn’t take the shame of us, and,

wanted to protect us from our shame.

We’ve all have to shed at least as much

as needed to fit in.

I learned the goal was to shed it all.

After the first few beatings, I didn’t really

need any more. I call the first few beatings

the first fourteen years of my life.

The more you hold on, the more

you will have to shed when you’re dead.

Come In Rangoon

Too much static from

the overwhelm..the

message isn’t clear.

Do we even still know

what we’re fighting for?

Or, even if we’re fighting?

I’m in Mexico. There must

be some reason why I’m 

here, not on some front

line somewhere, in the

middle of the whatchacall it,

revolution, jihad, chaos.

Come in, Rangoon…

it’s been so long since

I knew where I am

in the middle of changes

that boggle the mind….

Rangoon…specter of lost

time that could still tune in.

Watermelon

I want to finish my life

with the sweet juice

already tasted.

So far, so good, in spite

of all my friends 

abandoning me.

The sweet juice doesn’t 

depend on any of them,

or, even me.

Because, I’m only any

more there, you see, as

the title of a poem.

Late Enough

Like waiting for a ship or a train

two hours ‘till bedtime, the voyage

continues prone because flat is when

the mind continues to digest the life

which old people naturally tend to do.

Don’t let old people fool you by their

silence, seeming lack of attention. 

They know what you will at their age,

and, what will you have to say? 

There’s No Reason To Clean My Kitchen

I want my kitchen to be dirty

when civilization ends, or, when

my life ends, whichever comes

first, although, I bet the odds 

are even.

It’s a beautiful human repellant,

made for those whose noses

stick too high above their upper

lips.

Maybe it’s an excuse because I

don’t care because I’m a drunk….

Maybe it’s part of my Jackson

Pollock outlook, so very, very…

Maybe it’s the only way I can

still rebel.

Certainly not a way to impress,

but, do I want to impress?

Certainly not.

Haiku After Watching A Documentary About The Beats

A minor poet…

I just watched a Beats doc…

poured another drink.

Ten years too late I

met Ginsberg…he said I should

be secret poet.

Living suddenly,

without thinking…the Beats did…

spirit warriors.

Kerouac, Trungpa,

both dead at forty seven…

trains run out of track.

The shock of peace paused

the return of warlock mind….

Beats joyed in heart dance..

.

Was There Ever Anything That Meant Anything?

I know, we all know

the meaning of our personal lives…

or, we don’t know, or, we think we know

or, no…

all based on supposition that we had any

idea about it anyway, based on, as Vonnegut

did say, the bad chemicals in our brains.

There’s so much more to get over than anything

you could learn, in fact, you’ll learn more by

getting over everything…. I mean, children,

no one said it would be easy.  My parents

only showed me how hard it would be to be

myself…the path shown to me was one where

it would have been much simpler not to be.

Too soon?

Replicas

Of immensities…

Of mundane scenes

of life still going on…

Of what we remember

from our family, what it 

meant to them to be alive…

Of the immortality of some

experiences we’ll never 

forget….of the love, or, the 

real, that will carry us across

the universe.

Last Poem Of An Evening

Yes, the last poem always starts

with yes.

I’m sorry we have to start with yes

at the end of the evening…the rest

was much more interesting.

But, yes is where we start, even if it’s 

the end because we know there will be

another beginning…

..in the morning maybe, no, yes, always

when you get up, whenever that is…

whatever shock, maybe even just knowing

that you can’t sleep anymore…

..and you have to get up, wanting to be in

bed forever.

And your life goes on, even though you’re

not certain you can remember who you are. 

Stasis

UFOs and the Pilgrims…

the indians couldn’t see

the ships in front of them,

because there was nothing

in their experience that the

phenomena could reference.

There is nothing in my 

phenomina…right now…

that my experience can 

reference.

I’ve never been old before,

(in my memory), and looking

at it, it’s like getting a new set

of old legs…

What? I have to learn how to

walk again? Yes.

Stumbling along like an old

robot falling apart? Yes.

My body continuously tries

to rebuild the Xanadu of 

homeostasis, while my mind

continues to do it’s thing

somewhere…

Getting a new set of old legs

is my being reborn….realizing

the full circle…the cycle….

continuously coming back to

square one…lots of clues in

your past…mine your experience

for the gold of moments when 

you remember you had the 

chance to learn.

Slave To The Truth

I'm a slave to the truth....(I know, it's what I think to be true 

in my subjective view, maybe )

but....2500 years of Buddhism can't be that far off.

....and, in my position as a curmudgeon,

I can sit on the front porch of the world and shake my cane,

and say everything you know is wrong.

Xanadu

Is where I live…

in the secret caverns unseen…

you could say it’s my mind.

You could say it’s mind.

Unseen, like when you get

up in existence, the bare light

of knowing where you are

in the brief moment before

your parents and everyone

tell you who you are.

Unseen, brilliant, cavernous,

hidden, life itself, yes, someone 

saw it.

To A Poet I Just Read

I only need to look at his face

to know his poems....

I hope someone will say that about me someday.

The Next Poem

Starts out like all the rest…

a title…a concept like life..

where are you going to go

from square one, 

my little one…my baby, my 

son? Turn around and you’re

walking…turn around and

you’re grown….

(Vers 1)

..turn around and you’re

fucked up in a holel of 

your own.

(Vers 2)

Turn around and you’re

turned around knowing

nowhere to go.

(Vers 3)

Turn around and you’re

famous, with no way

to know.

(Vers 4) 

Turn around and

when you stop you can’ t

remember where you been.

(Vers 5)

This is just the next poem…

I always knew when to stop.

That’s why I’m still here.

Zen Crocodiles

You call your mother…

she picks up the phone and says,

“I was just thinking about you!”

We all know of this experience.

Hippie serendipity worked fine 

when we were aligned properly 

for a while….a pig like that,

you don’t eat all at once.

The Police State wouldn’t be so

police state-ish if it didn’t realize

it already lost. They can’t protect

themselves from themselves.

”A snowflake on a burning stove!”

…the Zen general flicks away his

counterpart’s sword with his fan.

The crocodile sitting in my lap

made me write this.

Poem For Madalina

You’re too young for me….

too beautiful….

those were my first thoughts.

Some say with age comes wisdom…

I say with age comes….age.

It’s a luxury to eschew complexity,

bask in the simplicity of knowing

if you haven’t done it by now, 

you might as well relax.

I wonder what young, beautiful

women think….I have time for

that now….before, the hormones

didn’t leave much time.

I don’t know how to thank 

anyone for anything….so,

here’s a poem...