Routine

He puts the tears
back in his eyes
and heads to the coffee shop
on the corner
finding refuge
in routine

They make him his usual and
His name on the cup
Reassures him that
he is recognizable
on the outside
though inside
he's come apart

A Poem For Lydia

Mourn the storm once it's passed

It was destructive and frightening

But also electric and alive and I've seen what beauty that kind of energy can create

I've laughed in spite of myself feeling the raw power rushing past my ears

It's still

And quiet now

And so

I can allow myself

to appreciate what is lost

Consensus

 We reached consensus

Slavery is bad

and so is rape

and Royalty

we're getting there

on war

racism

and misogony

We still embrace poverty

because we're not willing to let go

of the flip side

of that coin

Some must starve

and die

that other's my live

closer to the sky

They told me I was special

Destined

I'm destined

its not supposed to be this hard

I'm special

I'm gifted

I'm meant to for something grand

My faults

they are quirks

Its all part of my charm

Pay me

Pay me

I can't work at Chipotle

I can't

just can't

It isn't what was meant to be

for me

for me

it isn't what I'm meant to be

Ground Chuck

Every punk in Sacramento

Every artist, and every kid

knew the legendary Ground Chuck

and all the things we said he did

Could it possibly have been true

was he cursed, was he blessed

with chalk or sticks or strings

hammering out a holy mess

Chuck the metalhead, punk, and artist

chalking sidewalks for a meal

running across the street to tell the awfullest joke

and my laughs were always real

He'd coax a racket from any instrument

or sing like a banshee's cry

the spirit of our scene, he was

and he'll haunt us all until the day we die

I know he got his fill of cold beers

and some other guy's as well

He was quick with an I love you

or to tell a prick to go to hell

Racists could get fucked

he was fearless in their face

we were his tribe, his club, his family

hardcore, punk rock, artist was his race

The Preacher

He stands preaching

not to me

but to the room

I’m the only one in the room

a wheelchair serves as his cart

that holds all his possessions

including an old bible

that he’s now reading from

and I don’t have anything to offer him

other than an audience

but I have work to do

so now I’m on the outside patio

listening to the traffic

and he’s inside preaching

to the walls

and empty tables

I Was Afraid Of Indians

 I was afraid of Indians

I had a recurring dream

they were parading down my street

and the rule was

white people were not to look at them

they would pass by in the night

so long as we kept our gaze turned away

but I 

could not

resist

the colors, the beads, the flowers

the beautiful men and women

with dark skin, and long black hair

I'd carefully lift the curtains in my dark bedroom

I'd watch the parade

until one tall Indian man

suddenly turned his head

and looked directly into my eyes

I dropped the curtain

and hid beneath my bed

so afraid of what was coming

I'd wake up

in that same bed

next to that same window

scared and guilty

the street now empty and quiet

An abandoned and neglected Indian graveyard

by my house

was abused by kids from my neighborhood

I never participated

in kicking over

or otherwise vandalizing a grave stone

but I did climb the fence

and I walked on that ground

that I was not meant to walk on

the guilt of my actions

and the actions of the other white children

turned beautiful dreams

into terrifying nightmares

When I learned to fly

When I first learned to fly

It wasn't graceful

 A bobbing spinning kind of floating

More frightening than exciting

I tried so hard to hide it

Desperate to go undiscovered 

I didn't want to be a superhero 

I didn't want to be a weapon

I just wanted to look down at the world

Like I looked at the bottom of the pool 

On summer nights

With the underwater light on

I no longer fear being spotted 

People, I've found, are only willing to see so much

The Drum Line

 The drum line kicked off the show

and I wondered

Why don't all shows

Start like this

The big bass drums in the back

Swinging, being swung

by girls with shoulders

that were up to it

pounding out the heart beat

The snares in the front

polyrhythm tapped out on the rims

in between the tenor drums

bring color 

all eyes locked 

on the conductor

as he pilots thunder

a storm for dancing

meticulously organized chaos

energy saddled 

and ridden

You live with it

 In the morning grief is real

Its not going to kill you

you're not going to die

It remains here

The night before it threatened

gnashing of teeth

screaming

headache

heartache

Pain that carried with it

the promise that it can't go on forever

a fire eventually burns out

In the morning light there is the absence

the loss

the emptiness

that is forever

the pain that stays

that you live with

reality

of something missing

new scars mark your face

this is your face now

you live with it

The City

When I miss the beach
and woods
I go
I get my fill

But the city
is my love
my one true love
and I'll always return to her

The danger and filth
desperation and failure
I know them by name
and they know me

I'm not a strong swimmer
I can't hunt
I'm a talker
words my survival skill

Walking around the park

 Walking for health

And for vanity

Not to escape aging 

But maybe to slow it down

Geese are napping

all around the path

One hisses at me

I call him a gangster

The geese and their goslings

The humans and their littles

Watching each other

And being watched

I pass an old man

Older than me

He says hello

I make an odd hiss sound 

I leave the path

To walk around the garden center

Back onto the path

Reversing direction

I make this same move

Around the rose garden 

Then switching directions

Avoiding walking by my car

I pass the old man he smiles

I smile

His path is erratic like mine

Is he also avoiding temptation

"He says I'm not being tortured

The HEALING process

What if someone cut your fucking head off

The healing process is a sin"

A man pushing a shopping cart is yelling

"He helps me to be electric

In sync so I can be

NOT PSYCHOTIC"

The old man approaches again

I'm determined to say hi

A loud motorcycle passes

I walk to my car

Soft

I’m soft.
My father wanted it that way.
Wanted me not to be hardened by war or poverty

I’m soft
and there are those who believe this is a bad thing
soft boys are the ruin of society

I’m soft
to the chagrin of uncles wearing scar tissue armor
who fought to earn me this privilege

We are soft
and we are resilient, and ready should we need to rise with the need
to take on that which would harden us

I’m soft
and will not waste that privilege
to love and celebrate and cry and care and dance

I’m soft
and what I want more than anything
Is that my daughter can be softer still

Gone

"Where are you?" 
Christian's mom wrote so many months ago
on his facebook page
Where Happy Birthday greetings from one year
bump against those from another

Where've you gone this time Christian
If you get locked up again
or buried
I imagine your folks will be contacted
so we assume you're still out there, somewhere, alive

You and I used to drink with Holy Rock
and his brother Billy
in the courtyard by the church
they must have had people somewhere also
wondering where they'd gone
gone
how can drowning take so god damn long

Happy Birthday, Merry Christmas, Happy New Year
"Where are you?"
Where are you? 
I've waited to hear that you were gone
really gone
For 30 years now

VFW ABC

Walking while we were still able

table to table at The VFW Post

Grabbing  discarded glasses, beer roaches

and emptying them down our throats

Some fools had been dropping valiums

into the drinks they then abandoned

the beers Billy and I came to rescue

and later puked back up all over my spinning house

Steve was proud and boastful

of his talent at not giving a fuck

And truly he didn't

even when the Nazis showed up

As long as they were paying

He was happy to drink with them

I quit the alcoholic boys club in a huff

Steve smiled, poured another glass as he waved 'Goodbye'

Manny's skin was brown

and a few week later he face was kicked in

Steve eventually did time behind bars

He and Manny are both now in the ground

James got married

his bachelor party almost cancelled the wedding

and his new bride insisted

he find a better class of friend

Billy just up and disappeared

I don't remember the last time I saw him

But I ran into his jacket all the way up in Canada

being worn by a tough who must've rolled him for it

My girl named us the alcoholic boys club

We were living in the moment

outside of time or space or class

a thing not meant to last

For a season we held court

Ruling our corner of the VFW

Our throne the largest booth

where the booze flowed fast and sometimes free

Silver Lining

The silver lining is
the closer we get
to wiping ourselves
from existence, the
more comfortable I
get with seeing us go.

Trees

You've been told broccoli
looks like little trees

But when you're hungry it may be
That trees look like giant broccolies 

Darn Cat

The cat wants to cuddle 

The cat wants to play

The cat needs their

litter box changed

No matter what that cat wishes to say

He expresses it all in exactly the same way

Bite 

Clouds

Frozen explosions

Violence in silent slow motion

Breaking waves that escaped the ocean

Sin

If there is any kind of God
If there is a divine
I think the closest we get to it
is when we create
To honor a creator
and creation
create

And the biggest sin
ever committed by man
was using this drive
the desire and ability for creation
to infect our children with self hatred
in order to market 
false cures 

A Poem For Shane

When Shane Macgowan dies you write a poem 

What else is there to do? 

Listening to the Pogues and crying while driving 

I imagine the force that kept his heart pumping blood 

despite a lifetime of poisoning 

I imagine it as a star exploding 

It's shards lodging in the chests of poets the world over 

Infecting us 

Making us dance and sing 

driving us to put our tears and struggles and anger into rhythm and rhyme and verse 

to sing the pricks and pigs back into whatever hell they climbed out of 

and raise our voices 

as we raise our glasses 

and sing a song for Shane

Dead Friends

I unfriend my dead friends
on social media

Feels cold, but keeping 'em felt morbid.
Either way, I don't think they mind.

I smelled real wood smoke

Night isn't night enough, we've diluted the darkness
the fire in the fireplace is mostly decorative
An ever shrinking number of stars  are visible in the sky

but we're rarely eaten by wolves anymore

I wake up knowing most of my neighbors are waking too
We survive the nights for the most part
and die so very much more slowly sitting at a desk

wondering if an attack by wolves really such a bad way to go

My Dads Been To War

Dad's been to war
And he doesn't talk about it
Not talking isn't exactly a family trait
not at all what we're known for
this silence about what he saw there
words couldn't possibly say more

When I was a young man
Watching the politicians on TV
my dad pointed at the most combative of them
screaming America was worth fighting for
Every one of these hawks, without exception, he explained
Were men who'd never been to war

Old Men Talking Politics at The Coffee Shop

I romanticize the idea of old men sitting 

at the coffee shop arguing politics

but this morning I sat next to exactly this scene

as I drank my morning cup

and a more boring conversation I can't imagine

delivered somehow with great passion

I put my headphones on

and turned my music up

My Rosary Beads

I was raised a Catholic
and still a rosary hangs from my headboard
bought for me by my father
who is an agnostic

I tease him that he's just
afraid of commitment
an atheist down deep
in his soul that don't exist

He gifted me them before
I visited a war zone
He said "It couldn't hurt"
Feeling helpless, he hedged his bets

I keep my prayer beads
there, by my godless head at night
Connecting me to my childhood
When I loved and feared the Christ

Crickets

We brought my daughter home to a noisy four plex next to the railroad tracks. 

She taught me to appreciate our home. 

I thought living by the railroad tracks was awful, 

the train would go by and shake our whole house.

I needed my little girl to show me that it was awesome

“The train, daddy!” she’d holler

And we’d rush to the porch in our pajamas

And watch the trains go by

She’d call out the name of each car

Both the descriptive name, 

Hopper, engine, boxcar

But also their proper first names

Thomas, Spencer, Percy

We went from living next to the tracks

To having train front property

From there we moved to a duplex

Next to two freeways, and a busy street

With a big hospital

The train noise replaced

By the constant presence of helicopters

Police and ambulance sirens

Cruisin’ Impala’s with booming sound systems

And within this cacophony she found music

And she’d add her voice

The neighbors coming to know her as

The kid who sings

We continued our pattern

A one plex,

finally a home of our own

According to our postal address we were still in the city

But we were off the numbered and alphabetized grid

Only 24th street reached out to us

Like a tentacle from the noisy city center keeping us connected

And it was quiet

my first night in my new bedroom

I heard the crickets

I delighted to realize

I’d final gotten my little girl to a place peaceful enough

For her to hear nature’s nocturnal symphony of chirps

And as I smiled to myself, 

I heard her yell from her room

“SHUT UP, CRICKETS!”

 

The Weatherman

 The weather man said people are gonna die today

Not in those words

he spoke of freezing winds

and rain

and other reasons to stay inside

the weatherman said people are going to die

because they have no inside to stay in

so cover your plants

and bring in your patio cushions

Its Cold in Sacramento

Today I walked past a man wrapped in a blanket sleeping on the sidewalk. I walked past him. I can't imagine what his night was like. My ears hurt from having to walk a few blocks to work.

Did he have a tent at some point and our police cut it with razors and threw it away? I don't know, but I do know that they do this. They take homeless people's tents away from them, and cut them, and throw them away.

We have money to bomb other people's poor people but not to house our own, and then we go and we take their tents away and destroy them.
And I walked past him.

He was next to a gas station. Just a few yards away were houses, warm cozy houses like the one I woke up in this morning. If he broke a window to climb into one, he'd likely go to jail, and then be fed and housed. Instead he wrapped a blanket around himself, and lay on the cold sidewalk overnight.

And that's where he still was this morning, when I walked past him.

I don't know what to do. We complain, we demonstrate, we vote, we volunteer, but he still had nowhere to go last night, and it keeps getting worse and I can't keep walking past him.

And tomorrow, I'll walk past him again.

I'm Sorry

 I'm sorry

We just wanted to give you a good start

a jumping off place

somewhere safe to grow

to imagine dragons and be a tiger

to find that spark

and you did

and it grew

and you positively glow 

we succeeded

we can pat ourselves on the back

you're a gem, a truly unique, brilliant, beautiful thing

but we didn't warn you enough

we let you live in a safe world 

while outside there was ugliness and monsters

flame extinguishers

damaged, nasty things that hate the light

I'm sorry

I'm sorry we sent you full of stories

singing your own songs

into a world of marching to someone else's 

dull thud of a beat

I'm sorry

you should have to be the bomb

the solution

the revolution

the fight

thank you for being so strong

for taking on that struggle

for not bowing

I'm sorry

Family Value

I believe in hate

I am full of it

I eat it for breakfast

It's also my bedtime snack

I will not teach my daughter not to hate

I will instead practice with her her aim

We will hate together

Hate is our family value 

Hate is right

Hate for those whose selfishness, greed, prejudice, and willfull ignorance harms the innocent and poisons our world

Love is important but

It turns out

It is not all you need