Two New Songs

"I Didn't Hear"




"Termites Got Me Blues"

Granma on a Mountain

Eccentric Granma, cooped up
after decades on a mountain side,
because desert winds take your mind
and her family gave her a TV to draw into
as moths to that blue glowing
zapper. Her husband, found
in a plastic bag inside a box at the
back of the bottom shelf, corner
of her garage. He moved to
a terracotta pot where Granma used to
sit at sunrise and sundown. She liked it there
because these events occurred on her left and right
shoulders, respectively, as she looked
across the valley to where the coyotes
howled each night. Her fingers,
like bark, massaged the textures of
rolling acrylic paintings that lined her walls,
mountain-scapes and children hiding
in tree trunks that she painted, or her friends.
Ghosts hid her belongings. Otherwise, she'd have
flushed them to the septic tank, not
emptied in twelve years and she
couldn't understand the smells permeating
from those backed pipes.
She sipped Jim Beam with her neighbor, whose
arms hugged around her five foot, frail
frame twice, but with caution. She
loved to see those coming arrive, and loved to see
them go. She loved the loneliness in her
thoughts that taught her, properly enough, that
the weather is a lady in a frying pan and
three people in her bathtub was precisely
how she felt that day.
Granma, out there in the mountain desert,
wearing her sunhat, told Billy Mack just how
things truly were and that someone's been hiding
her things; her suspicions relieved when
she gave everything away to her friends and had
nothing else to worry about. Her family,
very shortly thereafter, sent her to the half-way house.

Bank Fees Blues and the Matter with This Place

congress passed a law.
banks stopped collecting tens of extra cash from some citizens overdrafting.
i have to pay 9 dollars each month now for wells fargo to hold the zeros and ones that create my monetary worth.
so i ask,
what is the rate and breadth of suffering incurred by those bank owners,
compared to those they lay-off to replace with automated tellers, to keep afloat
that bottom line?
 A salary cap in baseball?
A salary cap in football?
A salary cap for the fortune 500's who flout we people, highly floating on waves of gold coins like Uncle Scrooge
would be communism.
Although those who stay in the bottom category of society,
or wade in the middle,
are dependent on those who have money to pay;
and those who have money to pay
want to hoard more for themselves to ride those glistening waves,
thereby firing their dependents,
what is a citizen to do
within Capitalism?
Serve the customer her rake
so the company can pay the bank, and the rake maker,
who can then pay the bank, and the material supplier,
who then pays the bank.
And everyone still pays an ATM fee
because their bank doesn't supply its own
at the nearest corner store.

Anthony Weiner

Anthony Weiner, said to be a "rising star" among democrats, spoiled by his own crudeness, animal tendencies, and naivety. I heard, "Why would he lie?" to which I must argue, why WOULDN'T he lie? Explicit photos of himself to young girls behind his wife is inexcusable. Beyond dishonesty to his wife, he understood the magnitude to which the media would blow this and how they will dig deeper and exploit it further and cause more difficulty to he and his wife. And they have. And they continue. This rising star, instead of stumbling and regaining his steps, is bombarded by cameras and questions about his personal life and the most pressing issues regarding the state of the United States are ignored... because there's gossip. It is Anthony Weiner's fault for what he did and that he lied (which he has admitted), but it's the media's fault for being little distracted children who, apparently, like to look at pictures of Anthony Weiner's privates.

Short Stop by the Camera Store

Asked a man what TVs he had.
He told me, "HD-3d and Scandal cam."
I said, "Well, I like to knit."
I went home with a set of rabbit ears.

8-fold

Windy eats a hamburger as the Sheriff makes his rounds outside. Misfit Murphy walks the streets with Penny Greentips when they come across a junky stooped against a wall. Murphy strikes conversation. Trying to be on good terms with the junky, he throws ice in his mouth and spits out ‘Wut up, playa?’ Penny laughs to herself as the junky looks up to the gleam coming from Murphy's eye.

        A private jet passes overhead
        for a scenic view of the city.
        The people drop into paralysis
        of this too recent sight from
   
        the too near past.

    ‘I fight for justice,’ Eddy Pilot tells Paul. ‘I want for the law to be abided by, and, if not, I speak penalty against transgressors.’ The two walk the alley between a mansion and a gold and velvet salad bowl. ‘Amen, brother,’ declares Paul. ‘I want to feel safe in this town, but this place is been going downhill ever since they passed that "Liker" law. Glad to know you're fighting the good fight.’ ‘God bless America,’ says Eddy Pilot. 'God bless you, brother.' ‘Amen.’

        Spotlights shoot up like a cry
      
        for Superhero, reminding the
      
        city what’s been done, and why
      
        they must always walk
      
        in pairs.

    Dan Dean wants a bite to eat, steps into a burger joint, sees Windy. ‘Howdy, pard'ner.’ Windy looks up. ‘No soup today?’ Dean chuckles to himself. Windy stares at him, silently chews the last of his burger. Dean gets in line. Windy leaves without saying a word. He’s bumped into by Paul who presses past for a chicken sandwich. Windy quietly laughs to himself. Dean turns around. Paul stands beside him in line. Windy looks up and salutes Airforce One.

        The flag flies half mass outside
      
        the local Publicans’ office while
      
        the Derns’ office is closed. They’re
     
        out looking for a taller pole. Trophies
      
        were given over the weekend and
      
        Battle-ready won for peace. Meanwhile,
      
        NASA searched for moon ice using
      
        long-range missiles, and Middle Earth wants
      
        a new energy policy.

    ‘We’re hip, ya hear? Why you think people like me carry ice?' Misfit Murphy spits the ice out of his mouth, puts it in his pocket, and he and Penny Greentips walk away. 'Peace holmes.’ The junky sneezes in the shadows of two blue Towers. Penny offers to buy Murphy a bite. He accepts and the two go to the burger shack where they find Dan Dean, being converted by Paul, at a booth with two burgers and two drinks, no fries.

        People come and go at the museum.
        They ask each other, ‘What’d you think
      
        of that?’ before they look up and see a hot-air
     
        balloon followed by a chorus of flashes.

    Windy passes the sniffling junky, then tracks back, pulls out his point-and-shoot, snaps a picture, and goes on his way. At his studio, he makes thirty prints, eight by ten, then sews them into a quilt. It goes on display at the museum. The junky sees the quilt on the front page of his Wall Street Journal sleeping bag. Paul is appalled. Dan Dean and Misfit Murphy argue at the burger shack. ‘We gotta get these people up by example,’ says Misfit. ‘Show em the better way of sacrifice.’ ‘We must help these people,’ says Dean. ‘My people have proposed Monkeys for Junkies: Peers for the lonely.’ Paul clangs in, shouting, ‘If you hadn’t passed that law!..’ and they continue so on.

        Airforce One went home.
        The balloon ran out of gas.
        The golden salad bowl went
        to the Alchemist. Crime increased
        8-fold. The burger joint was packed.

    The Sheriff finds the junky cold in the corner. Eddy Pilot prosecutes Penny Greentips for insider trading. Misfit Murphy, remembering the hamburger, gets her off. Paul drinks the sacrament and rests against a dumpster. Windy sees him, snaps a picture, goes to his studio, and makes it into a Rubix cube. Dan Dean eats a burger, no cheese.

        In Washington, news broke about
        a helpless missionary. ‘Good men should
     
        not fall through the cracks of society,’ the
      
        Derns agreed. Congress tried
      
        to pass a bill to help him, but someone’s
      
        feelings got hurt in the process,
        so instead they passed a bill requiring
        
public apologies any time
        
someone is offended.

poem, 2009

Finding You

Dew trickled up my legs,
to the clouds, before the day warmed and sweat.
‘Shall we head to the water hole?’ ‘Let’s!’
The day burned to speak of You.

There stood beauty,
purity.
Placid flesh, divinity –
she threaded the water, stitching You.

Cream flesh through gray silk,
body slick as silt.
Though Devil tried, no flower would wilt,
as she wrote poetry to You.

Out of the water she shouldered the weight
of the breeze drying her grace.
Her form, delicate and chaste,
took no effort to praise You.

She asked why I stood dressed.
I explained, “I’m shy,” and the rest.
She reached, unbuttoned my thoughtless vest;
told me, our bare selves liken to You.

‘Are not the trees raw?
Does not the night thaw?
Is nature not law?
I abide,' said she. ‘What say you?’

* * *

She chuckled for my naivete;
cried, ‘We ought to live life joyously!’
In her gentle hand she took me,
smiled, ‘Come! I will show you.’

We escaped to a meadow.
Sun had sunk and damp moon followed.
Fireflies flickered and glowed.
Bare as palms, we raised, and I saw You.