050.365 - sixgun wishes

thirteen
still playing with capguns
wishing for the real ones
not able to face my real wishes
that I had an equalizer
and was no longer just a kid
helpless against grownups
no wonder when I had grown up
I thought myself a bomb
waiting to take as many of them
as possible
with me

049.365 - the lights

in the dark, the lights
stand out like intruders
outposts of civilization
where they are unwanted
denizens of the dark
rats, dogs, feral cats and humans
avoid their invader pools
doing what they must
children of the day
caught outside
dash from pool to pool
trying to find their way
without becoming prey
and succeed often enough
that others try
fail often enough
that we have police
who cannot tell the difference
between denizens and children
and so punish both

048.365 - cracked family

like glimpses through cracks in a plaster wall
my brother and I have fragments of memories
pieces of what we think happened in our family
not just what our mother and father did to each other
but conversations between them and our aunts and uncles
visits with our grandparents or great-aunts
we know lightning strike shards of events
hints of relationships and phrases of character
a car an uncle owned and a hair style an aunt liked
we know our grandparents had no parents or cousins
or none anyone would speak of when we asked
“what could they possibly have done,” he asked me
“that meant nobody later would talk about them?”
we know our family like people know history
after watching tatters of newsreels

047.365 - cliffhanger

“and then what happened?” the children asked him
he smiled his weary way and drank some water
“let’s see, where were we, had the prince found the magic sword?”
“no, no, no!” they protested “a man was about to murder the prince
the princess was locked in a tower where another man wanted her
and the dog was trying to lead their horse out of the mire”
“what a mess I’ve gotten us into, huh?” the story teller chuckled
“and how bad my timing is!  your mothers are about to send you to bed!
I don’t suppose you’d settle for ‘and then the gods, tired of it all,
swept the oceans over the highest mountains and started it over’?”
he grinned and a little boy slugged him, “that would be cheating!”
and a little girl scolded, “you’re leaving aren’t you?
your bags are all packed and by the door with your shoes
you’re waiting til we’re all in bed to tie some travel bread to your belt
and when we wake in the morning, you’ll have walked too far for us to catch you”
“no, no, no,” he winced then nodded, “well, yes, but I’ll return
I always have, haven’t I?  and I’ll finish the story then
all you have to do is remember the details so you can remind me
so I can finish the right story and not get us confused, will you do that?”
they chorused that of course they would, then their mothers descended
the story teller finished his beer and lit up his pipe
“isn’t it cheating a bit,” his host mildly chid, “to leave your story in such a mess?”
“is it now?” said the story teller, taking another draught on his pipe
“isn’t that what life does with us all?”

046.365 - a child's job

the boy
sneaked out of his yard
sneaked out of his town
sneaked past the briar
into the land beyond
and so began
a life of poetry
if he had only known
but that’s a child’s job, isn’t it?
to not know and find out
by pushing past
whatever closes him in

045.365 - from a painting

it is a village
it is a village of women
it is a village of women standing calmly
faces impassive
children hidden away
men and boys out of sight
it is a village of women standing calmly
daring the world to break up their quiet
it is a village of women
and they need no weapons
they endure
they have endured for ages
and will endure ages more
it is not that they don’t need men
they do
but not for much
but men are more fun than no men would be
and the world provides more work than fun
still
what we see is
a village of women standing calmly
a village of women
a village

044.365 - unvarnished

how dare you die in your sleep?
on one of the nights no nurse was here, of course
all the stories you promised to finish later
I must finish alone now I suppose
or leave them shriveling
roots unwatered
leaves unsunned
tips stilling instead of reaching
like that puppy I brought home once
and came back after summer camp to find him starved
only this time you cannot hear my complaints
I wondered then if you could hear them at all
I buried the damned dog
but you I will have buried
I will not dig your grave
nor drive a stone in to mark it
though it feels like I must carry a hundred holes
the endings you promised and postponed
and now you’ve ended without

043.365 - limited by physics

          do you know how much physics restricts your thinking
               -Linda Underwood

I do
two bodies cannot occupy the same space at the same time
a body in motion continues in that motion unless acted upon by a force
force is the product of the mass of the object and the acceleration produced
for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction
the more precisely position is known, the less precisely momentum can be known in that instant, and vice versa
yes
I cannot get past these requirements
unless I reseat myself in a surreal train
I listen in awe as politicians debate or preachers speak
until I guess they know no physics, mathematics, or logic
and so have no restrictions on their thinking
the same object indeed is purple to one of them
pink to another and orange to a third
one sees it run straight, another sees it loop
and for the third, the object flits like a butterfly
the men of god see angels sweeping the ground
to keep the object running in its course
I think I will go home and read a book
or maybe watch a movie
listen to rock'n'roll or play a game
I am more comfortable with watching how cards fall
than listening to reality
weep with its twisting

042.365 - the blue collie

it was the day of the blue collie
it was the day the blue collie transfixed the white mountain
and landed in Judy Benchley's back yard
"Grr," said the blue collie
which Judy translated as "Oh happy day! I'm here to play!"
that was before the blue collie bounded over her house
ran down the street and junped across the freeway
an old shaman on the reservation said
the blue collie returned
and found a civilization so out of touch with the world
that it went back to wherever it came from
maybe the Oort cloud
but a reporter explained that how would the shaman know
that Judy had probably translated right
and all we needed to do was find the blue collie

041.365 - intercession

speak to me hornzaplenty
oh do not turn away
I recognize I am not one of your select
one of the children with the golden eyes
who float above the earth
and collect your largess and then your lagnappe
no, please just whisper to me
I know you have already dispensed my handful of sand
but please, now speak
or whisper, mutter, mumble, gibber
but tell me what passes for reason
that you roll out your apples, oranges, and grapes
onto the tables of the few
then grains of wheat, barley and oats
onto the tables of some more
until you get to most of us
and spill out dust and sand and seeds
speak to me hornzaplenty
whisper, but tell me your little secrets
like how so many of us
can look at people without even dust and sand
staggering along in cloth held together by despair
and call them "dirty"
and call police
speak to me hornzaplenty, please
tell me how so many of us can watch untroubled
while others take away our schools
while others take away our houses
while others take away our jobs
while others take away our money
then scorn us as the God-forsaken
speak to me hornzaplenty
floating by us in the air
nodding to one and then another
but spilling only for the select
speak to me hornzaplenty
or if not me some other fool
who will protest on pen and paper
and maybe when cops come to burn the paper
they'll spark a conflagration
that will burn even the houses of the select
and even you, oh hornzaplenty
yes, even you

040.365 - the story gatherer

somewhere outside the narrow grounds
that school and church and home allow
he found the dirt his world was made of
dirt with stones and tree roots in it
dirt that supported grass and didn't
and found coarse men and women
scratching a living from that dirt
scratching their lives from dirt too
he found respect for those who did
thought they had stolen honesty
from folks his parents lived among
who seemed so casually sure of all they did
but grew embarrassed when he asked
found it funny that he tried to live
as did the dirt-scrabble that he'd found
but lived instead among distrusted
folks in dress shirts and polished shoes
folks who smelled like plants and vines
they'd never seen nor touched nor tasted
he wrote despite that of folks he'd found
whose stories he had listened to
and only wondered when too old
what stories the distrusted told
and whether they told them only to old stones
who could be trusted not to repeat
he listened and listened and even asked
but only met eyes that stared too far away
and a woman who tried to cast a spell
and cursed him when he didn't disappear

039.365 - purgatory

say that there is a man and he waits
sometimes he creaks out of his chair
and treads into the hall to where
he expects a bathroom instead of a wall
say he trudges back to his chair
say he sits and waits
say he wonders does nobody care
hadn’t he a mother?
hadn’t he a wife?
hadn’t he sisters?
wasn’t there life?
children in rooms or maybe outside?
where are they now that he needs a guide?
more rarely he walks to the window wide
in what he once called the living room
though nothing lives there now not even a book
and he stares through the window and outside fog
swirls and curls or sometimes just sits
as if almost as tired as he usually feels
he stands and he waits and returns to his chair
and tries to remember what he waits for

038.365 - second sight

the painting
a woman holding a cello
and a bow at rest
but my eyes keep seeing
a woman in a formal gown
with a slit that exposes
most of her thigh
near the top of which
she wears a holster
she holds the sixgun
at ease
she smiles
at ease too
waiting
for her target
unconcerned
with consequence

037.365 - brooch

her mother’s brooch
she turns it in the light
on the back is an inscription
in symbols she does not know
her eyes fill
so many questions she didn’t ask
so many stories lost
so many teases, hints and clues
so many sandals unexplained
she weaves the brooch’s pin
into her jacket
resolves
to create mysteries of her own

036.365 - hope

“there” she said
“that sound
did you hear it?”
I had heard
a truck passing
on the freeway
a hubcap clatter
a cat squall
a branch knock
against the window
and footsteps
on the sidewalk
across the street
“yes” I said
“that’s the second
time tonight”
she said “what
should we do”
“nothing,” I hoped
“sleep,” I hoped
what foolishness
hope is

035.365 - lost and found

I stand at an intersection
I stare at the traffic light
what am I doing?
where am I going?
I face along this street
I must have been going in this direction
going where?
going for what?
oh yeah!
I think I remember
I watched you cross the street to me
I smiled when you smiled
you took my hand
turned me around
and now I face along this street
holding your hand
waiting for the light to change

034.365 - rocks into sand

stillness
what a poet seeks is stillness
not in his external life
where kids may run around
radios play
politicians bray
but stillness
in his being
a quiet place
in his mental living
(forgive me, ladies, that may apply to you too)
stillness
where words can form
and play
and settle into new patterns
new meanings
and he may stare at them
or write them down
and be the first to wonder at them
then share them
and wonder again
at how what looked like rocks and bricks to him
turn into sand and flower petals
in the wind that swirls around him

splanation

what are all these posts labeled "doy.365 - title"?

A friend challenged me to write a poem a day in 2015.  I accepted and so far have.  I'm up to day 272 of 365.

I posted them day by day in Facebook Notes.  At about doy (Day of Year) 265, Facebook changed the format for Notes.  Ew!  Ugly!  Unappealing!  Not poetic at all!

So I am moving them to my blog, and have made my Facebook friends aware that I am doing so.

I'm not very fast at it.  I'm up to 033.365, but I'm catching up.  <g>  slowly.

033.365 - the bind

a spider web fills the door frame
on this side, darkness
outside, sunlight perhaps
on this side, cool and damp
outside, heat, sand gusts
on this side, a vague shape
perhaps a bed
perhaps an altar
perhaps a woman sleeps thereon
outside, children's voices
children at play but out of sight
on this side, a ewer
what smells and tastes like water
outside, a well a woman sometimes visits
on this side, room to pace
without approaching the maybe bed
outside, sand to the horizon
but sometimes a camel train
men walking beside it
walking, perhaps, away
and all that intervenes is
a spider web that fills the door frame

032.365 - the how

how does it happen?
eyes meet eyes
and dance away
then cycle back and meet again
dance lightly off
abstain abstain
then meet a third time
and after a while
hands touch
mouths speak
eyes flirt and dodge
then stay a while
hands speak
mouths touch
eyes close
and so much more is seen
mouths brush
fingertips feather
hands clasp
and feet walk off together
and for a while we think
that
that is how it happens
no
that is what happens
and no one knows
the how

031.365 - a naughty thought

night crept down the streets and alleys
like a skirt’s shadow
and little boys looked up to see
what their mothers would have said they shouldn’t
but all they saw was darkness
here and there a pinhole star
a trail of smoke uplit by factory lights
the city is no place to see
the world’s center or the night’s
yet the world slowly narrows as cities spread
hurry while you may!
find yourself a place on mountains or in desert
look up!  look up!
don’t worry what your mother thinks
there’s nothing you can do between those towering legs
but oh, you can dream
you can

030.365 - closing the loop

I was
in my own mind
a good son
I resisted their religion
their morality
their good citizenship
laid cable in the desert
with men I thought good
although I had my doubts
about the college students
in my classes
I thought I smelled on them
parents like my own
still running puppet strings
I tried church one more time
then cheerfully gave it up
“God doesn’t want your mind”
the preacher said
so I made sure He didn’t get it
found wonder in the desert
the night sky above it
stars in telescopes
robots studying planets
found goodness in women
in Harley-Davidson
in working alone
discovered like a party gift
people tied up in words
and busily untying them
“family!” I said
and some answered “brother”

029.365 - letting go

my pa didn’t even hate my ma
he didn’t know no other way to treat her
it was how his daddy did his mom
it must be right
he never knew that when his ma
dreamed she dreamed
that woman laughed and flirted
and practiced with a sixgun
til she could pop the pip
out of an ace of spades
head off a rattlesnake
the night she died
she dreamed she dreamed
she shot her husband seven times
each of his fists
the place he should have had a heart
his mouth
his mouth
his mouth again
that part of him she had no name for
but caused her so much pain for sixty years
she smiled and knew that seventh round
must’ve been a miracle
she blew the smoke out of her gun
smiled
let this world go

028.365 - the childhood I never had

some things there ain’t no tellin’
the ghost in Miz Alexander’s house
I wasn’t even spoztabe in there
the tree house out near the leaves
where the branches bobbed an’ weaved
whenever we shifted where we sat
the hammer I dropped an’ how close it came
well, never mind, just too damn close
the kiss I stole from Linsey Appleby
when I startled her walkin’ in her robe
the night Joey an’ I stole the mayor’s car
an’ left it parked by Uncle Emory’s still
didn’t none of us know whose Uncle Emory wuz
or the time fireworks lit the sky damn near all night
on July third - I ain’t sayin’ I knew anything about it
or lit any match
but I was outside an’ ridin’ Johnny’s bike
bent over an’ pushin’ pedals hard
as if Satan himself was chasin’ me
instead of Johnny’s father
an’ when the sky lit up an’ the ground shook
I did think maybe Satan had caught up at last
an’ meant to whup me for all the times I blamed him
the dazzles an’ the roars went on an’ on an’ on
an’ Johnny’s father forgot all about me
I rode the bike back to his house an’ left it
an’ fireworks kept explodin’ across the sky
so maybe I didn’t have nuthin to do with it at all
but I been mighty careful since then what I do at night
some things there ain’t no tellin’ ‘bout at all
but damn they sure worth rememberin’

027.365 - the dolphin

I remember the dolphin weeping
because he had no porpoise
and so relate
I too have no purpose
I am not a sniper in Ireland
a pol in Washington
(is a pol like a moll I wonder
innocent except by association?
I choose in favor of the moll)
no architect with a vision of buildings
not even a plumber or carpenter
with soundness to create
I am a clown with words
who keeps them all in air
then tumbles them into place
and sometimes make people gasp
and wonder if the result is chaos
or order they mistrust
my only answer
a mischievous grin

026.365 - disconnect - reconnect

“the light,” he said, “is incoherent”
“I feel like that,” I said, “myself sometimes”
he looked a bit radish to me in that dark
and I’d had to guess at his celery
earlier when we discussed finances and finery
but the world had turned and murder happened
and now we talked physics in the dark
when neither of us were doctors
and we weighted for the fleece to shine
lights without illumination or clarity
upon and around the body and the blood
and knew when cars arrived our deprived
would turn depraved in their lights
and we might very well become the perps
who had but recently reported the dime
“wait right there,” the nine-eleven lady said
and we wondered if she really were nine-eleven
instead of five-two or thereabouts
but then he found two cards poking out from a crate
the five of spades and two of diamonds
and knew in a flash of darkest darkness
our lights were really incoherent

025.365 - light and coherence

“the light,” he said, “is incoherent”
“I feel like that,” I said, “myself sometimes”
he looked a bit radish to me in that dark
and I’d had to guess at his celery
earlier when we discussed finances and finery
but the world had turned and murder happened
and now we talked physics in the dark
when neither of us were doctors
and we weighted for the fleece to shine
lights without illumination or clarity
upon and around the body and the blood
and knew when cars arrived our deprived
would turn depraved in their lights
and we might very well become the perps
who had but recently reported the dime
“wait right there,” the nine-eleven lady said
and we wondered if she really were nine-eleven
instead of five-two or thereabouts
but then he found two cards poking out from a crate
the five of spades and two of diamonds
and knew in a flash of darkest darkness
our lights were really incoherent

024.365 - gratitude

                    It is impossible to thank you.
                              Jane Ormerod

What could I say to Donny Jackson
for a new way to see, hear, feel language?
to V. Kali for raising children?
to Conney Williams for New Orleans
without and with the hurricane?
to Rebecca Gonzalez for East L.A.?
as a girl and a young woman?
to Lisa Marguerite Mora
for deep-thought elegance?
and to a dozen other friends
for speaking rage about injustice?
they teach me once again
what poetry is and isn’t
it’s not the dance
it’s not the music
it is the dancer
turning music no one else hears
into poses, movements, and positions
ripples that go on
beyond the pond

023.365 - what lies before us

from our perspective
the honeysuckle flower fills the sky
over a nearby hillside
where children play a form of hide’n’seek
hiders cover both eyes
finders get to use one eye only
some of the found sprawl in the grass
others join the finders
we cannot discern the rule
an adult body lies near or in the game
at first we think it a chaperon
until we notice bulletholes
bloodstains, a broken finger
with a bone splinter sticking out
closer but way off to the right
a band plays in a gazebo
from much closer a grasshopper
looks at us askance
the daytime moon
might be a puff of cloud
not drifted apart yet
it floats beside the honeysuckle
everything waits

022.365 - deafness

the poet walks into the fields at dark
the scents of grasses hover close to the ground
if he were taller, he might not smell them
if he were taller, a breeze might tease his ears
but he has the height he has and can at best tiptoe
he must look up to the moon, the stars, the Milky Way
he must look up to the tops of trees, even some walls
what he was seeking, some experience of openness
exists no more among the fields than in the city
if he but knew, he would take himself to the desert
with its rarer forms of life and hardier
and stars right down to the edge of the horizon
and there, there he would reach for that feeling
whatever openness is exists where desert stretches miles
or maybe on a raft in the Pacific miles and miles from shore
there, if openness is his goal, he can experience it
and if a divine exists, maybe there too it appears
but for the poet, too defined by the city and its surrounds
neither can appear, their absence imposes
a kind of deafness on the poet’s hunt for knowledge
the poets wanders back into the city
and breathes the scents of burnt fuels
sees life through smudgy air
and sees sky as a background for the buildings

021.365 - after the address

the dragons are out again
no, wait, those are elephants breathing fire
intoxicated by the fumes from oil companies
spellbound by pseudo-economists
given thrust and lift by their own rhetoric
they circle then strafe and bomb us
and in some ways we deserve it
given how we have treated and still treat
other animals, except these are symbolic
creatures of dreams and nightmares
pets of the very rich, trained to vote
in Congress and state legislatures
then rush out to puke and diarrhete
on working people, then land and tell us
how lucky and blessed we are
and what a fine world this now is

020.365 - quixotic

Cervantes got it right
the old world is always dying away
dying out from under us
like those treacherous rugs
in long-ago cartoons
the new world bears down on us
not like a knight charging
but a runaway eighteen wheeler
we have to step aside like a toreador
and let the truck discover
whether the tunnel is really there
or simply has been painted on the cliffside
and either way we must still discover
how we’re going to live now
in the new world that is
and has no concern for what we thought
the rules were
if we’re quick enough
we can snatch the falling tableware out of the air
and set a picnic

019.365 - jovial

yes, I can see it now
his body curled into a tormented comma
his hands desperately clasped over his head
while the skull splits, splinters, fragments
and the mind inside sizzles, fritzes, snaps, and explodes
setting free the dozens, scores, maybe hundreds
of young women scantily clad if at all
heretofore trapped in the beginnings of his stories
and now free and spilling into your apartment
the halls and lobby of its building
the sidewalks around the pool in the atrium
out into the so-called secure parking
and every one of them looking to you
his companion for eversomany years
to help them adjust to a world
not so different from that in his mind
kinder perhaps and crueler probably
since he was continually surprised
by what men do to each other and to others
in God’s name or no one’s
and that too was part of the snapping and fritzing
of the mind releasing its contents
like Jove but without the divinity
to accept it and go on
inventing

018.365 - environmental change

while I was out
light flooded the office
I came back to a room unknown
strange things had happened
and might happen yet
perhaps a stone would grow a sword
although I was too old for that
or one of the computers
might become illuminated
hell, even I might
I considered closing the curtains
decided against it
maybe it’s worth the risk
working outside the dark

017.365 - summary

imagine
Georgia O’Keeffe alive
after her death
her spirit vast enough
to see the mountains as her canvas
for a sequence of miniatures
to that vast spirit
her hand
bringing to life
the details of a lily
her hand again
brushing the structure of a longhorn’s skull
into the sky
her image of the Old People
arising from the mudhole
the very femaleness
of a flower’s organs
the ruggedness
of the mountains themselves
a portrait of herself laughing
sometime in her fifties
or herself again
looking at a photograph
of Steiglitz
all arranged along a stretch
of mountains
to be seen by passengers
looking east in afternoons
from I-25
in southern New Mexico
or from space
imagine
Georgia O’Keeffe alive
brush in hand
looking for her next project

016.365 - the dance

the dancer takes positions
I didn't know a man's body could take
then snaps to another
and another
each on a drumbeat
as if the dancer and the drummer were co-minded
a flute player joins the drummer
and the dancer  f l o w s
from pose to pose
clockworks replaced by tension
a violin joins in
a woman dances too
the same tension
complementary positions
beyond arm's reach
from each other
until the dance
teases
their bodies to each other
hands touch
then feet
and when the lights go out
the emptiness
that too is part of the dance
the emptiness

15.365 - space pioneers

darkness finishes closing down the western sky

a bright light starts just beyond some dunes

it climbs above them

appears to hover

then climbs faster and faster into the sky

leaving behind a tower of cloud that slowly dissipates

a rocket has left the west coast

its payload intended for earth orbit

we few on the ground cheer

as if it might hear

or care if it did

I cheer with the rest of us

only secretly ambiguous to see us teeter into space

perhaps we’d walk with more bravado

if there were someone else to impress

to conquer

to steal from

we know how to do that with aplomb

machismo

swagger

we know how to bring them death by diseases they don’t know

but what if

surely not

but what if

just beyond the curtains of our own skies

or out beyond the swirl of outer planets

the cloud of comets waiting to plunge in

space pioneers await

with the same plans for us?

014.365 - myth and counter myth

you have heard of the fire elves
the ice elves
the blue fairies
we are the elves who missed the boat
we are the elves all of whose ancestors drowned in the Flood
yes, according to other people's stories
Noah came to plead with our ancestors
Ham did
Shem too
even Japheth reluctantly begged our ancestors to come
but they were busy hosting a party
or preparing a garage sale
we don't know
no one lived to explain
but wait, some of you might insist
how can we be if our ancestors all drowned?
exactly what we retort!
but our tormentors laugh and have an explanation
even before the Flood elves and fairies interbred
and every generation since the Flood throwbacks have emerged
and the rest of the fairies and elves have recognized them
raised them with pity til they were old enough
them left them to find each other
and so, the elves who missed the boat
now number at least a million
anywhere you look you can probably find one
although no one has ever made that study
I prefer our countermyth
that we were the Unspoiled
the ones nobody pampered
who had to swim for forty days and nights
or weave a raft from spindrift and seaweed
and sit or stand very carefully indeed
find food in rainfall or in the sea around us
or birds too curious for their own good
remember those birds who never came back to Noah?
they fed hungry elves
and those of us who managed to survive
rekindled our tribe
we may not have any special blessing
but we live proud
unpampered still
unblessed maybe too but still Unspoiled

013.365 - snaps

life is too big a subject
we have to take it in small bites
a stumble on a mountain road
a leap across a stream
the thrill when our eyes meet
life may be all we ever write about
but only in graspable moments
pinches of salt in soup

012.365 - praise

I praise the body public
for dreaming on of democracy
of freedoms honored
of being free of race considerations
I praise the body public
for following the elected
instead of insisting that they
follow them
or even represent them well
I praise the body public
for dancing to the tune of masters
with no regrets
for finding happiness whatever comes
I praise the body public
for re-electing people who have kicked and chained them
for dreaming past their chains
for finding ways to cope with lowered ceilings
I praise the body public
not sure I'd want them any other way
for once that body stirs
the puking will drown elected and masters both
and people who mocked it.

011.365 - seduction by serenity

never, ever, had he felt such peace and quiet
never such calm
soon he must stir enough to write a poem
but for the moment, for several moments
let him revel in the solitude, the stillness
the sweetly unscented ease
let him not think of what there was to do
and who must do it if he couldn’t
he thought the equivalent of a smile
without the bother of stretching or curling lips
he considered opening his eyes but knew
soon as he did, to-dos and shoulds would start
no, just this while he would forgo them
he settled gently into this good rest

010.365 - some nights even fairy tales are surreal

the frog rode in on a worn Western saddle
aboard a tired horse
between them they carried
more dust than he'd ever imagined
he tipped back his hat
a short-brimmed fedora
and stared around him
yes, this must be his destination
a glass silo stood not far away
three-quarters full of wheat
nearer were the stables
tricked out with gold trim
he rode in
made arrangements for his horse
and dropped to the ground
then shifted to another disguise
a prince in distress
he found the hotel
the saloon and the bath-house
and finally the cafe
he would have retired after that
except he heard music play
and wandered in search of it
the town held a dance
so he joined it
and danced away tiredness
til a partner smiled
"hello, Leda," he choked
interpreting the smile
she said she could easily turn
him back to a frog and swallow him
at heart she was always a goose
even though Zeus knew her as a swan
"you prob'ly should leave," she crooned
and he felt a days-long ride in his bones
he walked out of the dance and leaned
on a veranda post
behind him a rustle of skirts
turned into a young woman not Leda
she sidled up to him
and he noticed her head of a collie
it wasn't his night
he strolled on back to the hotel
watched the moon take a bite from the clouds
shuddered and went in and slept
rode away the next morning
still seeking his destination

009.365 - death in the desert

the cowboy drew his gun and fired then holstered

faster almost than we could watch

the young man who had challenged sneered

finished drawing his gun then looked surprised

sagged to the ground and laid it down

I and the other tourists looked around

was this a show and would the two break character now?

but the young man lay awkwardly beneath the sun

the cowboy mounted a horse and rode away

the sheriff stepped out from the bar and swore

and I went in to buy a drink

008.365 - American nightmare

a man I didn't even know

just met at a store

and stopped to share a beer with

told me "my grandfather owned his home

owned his car

owned his tools and shed

I wonder if I'll ever get there"

he stopped

we watched a butterfly looking for a flower

"I'm like that" he said

"I work and flit and work and flit

and sometimes get home with the pollen

but usually lose it to the bigger butterflies

the ones with claws and teeth"

he shook his head and took a swig then stood

"I want to tell my son how to grow up

but haven't figured it out myself

whatever my grandfather knew

my father lost

and I ran by not listening"

007.365 - the beach in Watts

                                 How mad will you be? - Brendan Constantine

I stare at him

not angry, mad

as in Hatter

as in George III

as in the rulers of Europe in 1914

when war was as unnecessary as ice cream

yet the only choice they had once the prince was shot

"how mad will you be?"

but as an artist not a helpless

not as the young man chasing the tumbrels

yelling that he too was an aristocrat but without a name

insisting and insisting til the courts finally had to behead him

to shut him up and let them get back to their work

beheading the real aristocrats

the ones who had titles and names and land

"how mad will you be?"

like van Gogh

or maybe Picasso

and I imagine myself staring at the ocean

with both eyes on one side of my head

or with one of them perpendicular to the other

watching and watching the breakers roll onto the beach

over and over as if maybe just once the sand would turn gold

or the sea horses would sprout sea knights

with armor that would cover but not smother their gills

and wonder if I should run sit on the beach

and stack seashells

higher and higher till I had to lean the stacks on each other

for mutual support

and to imitate those towers in Watts

no, wait, I'm a poet

I say and remember the tumbrel chaser

"how mad will you be?"

if I am to stack

it's words I must stack 

words and images and metaphors and similes and more words

climbing and winding around themselves and reaching for the sky

til I too can stand back

look at a structure solid enough to last years

but seeming as fragile as earbones

as intricate as Faberge eggs

look at it and feel helpless

what will I do next?

turn to someone and ask

"how mad will you be?"

006.365 - it must have been a dream

he walked toward school indignantly

they'd sent him off with less than he'd need

to pay for one small bottle of milk for lunch

he scowled and pouted and argued in his mind

while keeping a pleasant face for folks to see

it wasn't fair there was no way

a boy could get even with grownups

then nearly all the way to school he stepped out of his world

he heard a commotion he'd never paid attention to

and wandered off his path until - behold! - a fair set up!

two women fought with stands that should've just unfolded

a table collapsed just as the stand-keeper would've set fruit down

a donkey started to walk away when its owner's arms were full

the boy found wondrous ways to help and saw a new world begin

a centavo here, five there, once even ten!

flowers, meat, chickens, painted rings, and carved stone bracelets

materials for dresses, skirts, and shirts

and different trims for ladies who could afford them fancy

a merchant sent him running across the fair with a note

another sent him back with an answer, and both paid him

he ate lunch and still had money, gambled and lost

gambled and won, talked with a girl until her mother called

he bought a snack and listened to musicians play

songs his parents nor the school would have let him hear

and finally recognized that school must have let out

he walked home smiling at a happy world

his school uniform as dirt-stained as he

but he had three times as much money in his pocket

as he'd left home with, and knew better than to tell

he caught hell at home, of course, late and dirty

but not enough to chase away his hidden smile

a windstorm two days after blew down a fifty-year-old tree

and damaged the school roof, teachers and principal

even the janitor danced as if possessed

and no one asked about the note he should've brought from home

a month went by, and his mother puzzled over the school's report

"did you miss a day from school this term?" she asked

"no ma'am," he answered honestly

he hadn't missed it at all

005.365 - caveat or not

a highway splits and passes on each side
of a saguaro holding both arms up
perhaps a supplication, perhaps a warning
"do not go farther into my desert"
a sun blazes at about half sky high
light glints from a revolver on a narrow ledge
most of the way up a cliff topped by a bighorn sheep
light reflects on a sword left near a cave mouth
shines from a knife blade near a skeleton
at the end of crawling tracks
a lake shimmers so you seem to see sand underneath it
and near it a skull overlooks crossed bones
the highway pays no heed to any of that
rejoins past the saguaro and lopes across the desert
at the horizon a city sparkles

004.365 - O'Keefe and skulls

New Mexico
where Georgia O'Keefe hung a skull across the sky
and then another
and another
until she'd filled a year of skies with skulls
or flowers
one at a time
so we could examine the details of bone structure
or flower organs
without butterflies
and underneath those, on the ground, life went on
walls crumbled
chickens found food
but no Daedalus prepared to fly, no Hades to kidnap
the world we know
went on and on
except for that damned skull across the sky
and whatever it meant

003.365 - Texsurrealas

my uncle's face dominates the sky
a lightsource neither sun nor moon
below him to the left the edge of town
a warehouse, the shaughterhouse,
a row of shanties
wildflowers a yard apart along the road
straight as honesty "to remind us of our failings"
across the road fields of wheat eye-high to a man
with here and there a sunflower standing taller
gazing adoration at my uncle
on that side too the girl who rejected me
looking startled as her horse prepares to buck
a cow off to the side stares, its back half a pig's
and a chicken looks both ways at the road
as if she prepares to cross it

002.365 - looking for justice?

she walked a street last night
seeking a guide
a lawyer led her into an alley
unwrapped her and enjoyed her
a soldier on leave stole her dress and her sword
a business man her scales
but no man stole her blindfold
and she might still have escaped, have gotten away
except she stepped into the path of a cop's ricochet

001.365 - when my sista

When my sista gets through singin' her song,
When the music stops and the words come out all wrong,
when my sista gets through singin' her song,
be you expectin' trouble, you won't wait too long.