A Strong Male Rain
Menacing dark clouds
Navajo rain fell over red canyons
Lightning to breathe white fear
. . . Thunder followed . . .
and somewhere nearby is a Jewish Kugelblitz.
I knew the rain storm was coming
The air danced with wet sand off golden dunes
The horse began to get excited
from the whispers of rolling thunder in the distance
I had a small phobia of thunderstorms.
Slowly he crawled across the sky, angry
he's large and bumpy with thick strapping gray muscles
This storm cloud was male, that's what Grandma says
"When the clouds gather anger they cry thunder and rain,
this is the male rain."
The sudden winds kicked up sand into my eyes, I blinked
In a drying puddle from yeserday's storm I see Darcy's face
Darcy is a Jewish girl from Phoenix
She's a friend who's also afraid of the male rain
her brother Ean brought on her fears.
Grandma brought on my fear of storms
She told us kids to sit still and don't talk during a storm
or we'd get struck by lightning for disobeying
When Darcy was young, she used to sit at the window
and watch the lightning show during monsoon season.
Ean walked to his sister by the window
He grinned his teen-age teeth and said
"You know if you stand too close to the window,
a Kugelblitz will get you."
"A Kugelblitz?" she asked questioningly.
"Yeah, a ball of lightning to chase you."
She never watched the light show again
Instead during stormy nights, she silently cried in bed
Little Jewish tears added to the monsoon's rain
She told me this story one rainy night when we were alone.
I told her about the male rain and what not to do during a storm
She told me about Ean and his sadistic tale of the Kugelblitz
I guess Jews and Navajos aren't all that different
We were both afraid of thunderstorms
We had other past storms we were afraid of too,
She had the Holocaust
And I had America.
...Lightning flashed...Thunder followed...
I began whipping my horse trying to escape the storms.
Blue Tattoo
On each arm
a seven-digit number.
It hurts a little
as the flesh is pricked.
Blue fog
Men are made to run barefoot
on blue iced snow at dawn.
Hydrogen cyanide.
Bluish pellets of Zyklon B gas,
Effective in large rooms.
Men, women, children, babies,
Stripped, crowded,
packed into the chamber.
Blue fog.
Families holding hands
stiffened in death,
no room to fall down.
It is difficult
to tear them apart
to empty the chamber
for the next load
for more blue tattoos.
But Instead Has Gone into Woods
A girl goes into the woods
and for what reason
disappears behind branches
and is never heard from again.
We don’t really know why,
she could have gone shopping
or had lunch with her mother
but instead has gone into
woods, alone, without the lover,
and not for leaves or flowers.
It was a clear bright day
very much like today.
It was today. Now you might
imagine I’m that girl,
it seems there are reasons. But
first consider: I don’t live
very near those trees and my
head is already wild with branches
Land of the Rising Sun
Sayonara
Flying from Japanese night,
We left Haneda Airport in Tokyo
Four hours ago at 9:30 P.M.
June 30th
And now we are flying into the sunrise
Over the Pacific that is on its way
To Japan
Where darkness lies on the land
And the sun is hours away
I greet the sunrise of July 1st
For my Japanese friends
Wishing them a pleasant day
The sun is on its
Way
For Fear of Being Alone
For fear of being alone
You do so many things
That aren’t you at all.
Just Because
Just because
People love your mind,
Doesn’t mean they
Have to have
Your body
Too
The Memoirs of Jesse James
I remember all those thousands of hours
That I spent in grade school watching the clock
Waiting for recess or lunch or to go home
Waiting. For anything but school
My teachers could have easily ridden with Jesse James
For all the time they stole from me
I’ll Affect You Slowly
I’ll affect you slowly
As if you were having
A picnic in a dream
There will be no ants.
It won’t rain.
The Rose That Grew From Concrete
Did u hear about the rose
that grew from a crack
in the concrete
Proving nature's laws wrong
It learned to walk
Without having feet
It learned 2 breathe fresh air
Long live the rose
That grew from concrete
When no one else even care
"Blowin' In The Wind"
How many roads must a man walk down
Before you call him a man?
How many seas must a white dove sail
Before she sleeps in the sand?
Yes, and how many times must the cannonballs fly
Before they're forever banned?
The answer, my friend, is blowin' in the wind
The answer is blowin' in the wind
"Girl From The North Country"
If you're traveling the north country fair
Where the winds hit heavy on the borderline
Remember me to one who lives there
For she once was a true love of mine
If you go when the snowflakes storm
When the rivers freeze and summer ends
Please see if she has a coat so warm
To keep her from the howlin' winds
Please see if her hair hangs long
If it rolls and flows all down her breast
Please see for me if her hair's hanging long
For that's the way I remember her best
I'm a-wonderin' if she remembers me at all
Many times I've often prayed
In the darkness of my night
In the brightness of my day
So if you're travelin' in the north country fair
Where the winds hit heavy on the borderline
Remember me to one who lives there
She once was a true love of mine
Three Deer One Coyote Running In The Snow
First three deer bounding
and then coyote streaks right after
tail flat out
I stand dumb a while two seconds
blankly black-and-white of trees and snow
Coyote's back!
good coat, fluffy tail,
sees me: quickly gone.
Later:
I walk through where they ran
to study how that news all got put down.
Riprap
Lay down these words
Before your mind like rocks.
placed solid, by hands
In choice of place, set
Before the body of the mind
in space and time:
Solidity of bark, leaf, or wall
riprap of things:
Cobble of milky way.
straying planets,
These poems, people,
lost ponies with
Dragging saddles –
and rocky sure-foot trails.
The worlds like an endless
four-dimensional
Game of Go.
ants and pebbles
In the thin loam, each rock a word
a creek-washed stone
Granite: ingrained
with torment of fire and weight
Crystal and sediment linked hot
all change, in thoughts,
As well as things.
A man a woman a sort of love
She was beautiful woman
But he did a lot of ugly things
To turn her world around
In his own way he loved her too
Trying to be his own man
Conquer the world when he couldn't
She became his last stand
He was Cowboys she was Indians
Some beauty fades
Into many ugly scenes
Glows from flush of love
Turn to flickering hopes
Falling from the clouds
When somebody leans
Today too early for the future
Too late for the past
What happens to love
The kind that lasts
She wanted what she needed
He needed what he wanted
Being in two worlds existing as one
Confined in the walls
Of their relationship
Becoming hammers tearing the walls down
Once the shared the same dream
Ends up they both had canvas of
Their own and their own paint
Then they saw
They only brought one frame
Her part of the dream alone
Was bigger than that
A man a woman a sort of love
Perfect Day
Just a perfect day
Drink Sangria in the park
And then later
When it gets dark, we go home
Just a perfect day
Feed animals in the zoo
Then later
A movie, too, and then home
Oh, it's such a perfect day
I'm glad I spent it with you
Oh, such a perfect day
You just keep me hanging on
You just keep me hanging on
Just a perfect day
Problems all left alone
Weekenders on our own
It's such fun
Just a perfect day
You made me forget myself
I thought I was
Someone else, someone good
Oh, it's such a perfect day
I'm glad I spent it with you
Oh, such a perfect day
You just keep me hanging on
You just keep me hanging on
You're going to reap just what you sow
You're going to reap just what you sow
You're going to reap just what you sow
You're going to reap just what you sow
I've Noticed a Paradox
I've noticed a paradox
In this cold world where strangers seldom speak
And Heaven forbid should they ever touch
But on a dance floor when slow music plays
Two strangers can come together
Without questions
Without lies
And while the music is playing
They can express a basic human need
To hold
And be held
And somehow I can't help but believe
That the whole world
Should learn to play
A little more
"Slow Music"
Everybody Knows
Everybody knows that the dice are loaded
Everybody rolls with their fingers crossed
Everybody knows that the war is over
Everybody knows the good guys lost
Everybody knows the fight was fixed
The poor stay poor, the rich get rich
That's how it goes
Everybody knows
Everybody knows that the boat is leaking
Everybody knows that the captain lied
Everybody got this broken feeling
Like their father or their dog just died
Everybody talking to their pockets
Everybody wants a box of chocolates
And a long stem rose
Everybody knows
Everybody knows that you love me baby
Everybody knows that you really do
Everybody knows that you've been faithful
Ah give or take a night or two
Everybody knows you've been discreet
But there were so many people you just had to meet
Without your clothes
And everybody knows
Everybody knows, everybody knows
That's how it goes
Everybody knows
Everybody knows, everybody knows
That's how it goes
Everybody knows
And everybody knows that it's now or never
Everybody knows that it's me or you
And everybody knows that you live forever
Ah when you've done a line or two
Everybody knows the deal is rotten
Old Black Joe's still pickin' cotton
For your ribbons and bows
And everybody knows
And everybody knows that the Plague is coming
Everybody knows that it's moving fast
Everybody knows that the naked man and woman
Are just a shining artifact of the past
The Road Not Taken
Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth;
Then took the other, as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim,
Because it was grassy and wanted wear;
Though as for that the passing there
Had worn them really about the same,
And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I kept the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way,
I doubted if I should ever come back.
I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and
I— I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.
Untitled
Either a snail’s moist web
of moonlight, or someone’s
hot breath at four a.m.
when the night has been
too much, has eaten
you whole.
This is my life.
It has been
sifted through the bones
of my body, through
blood.
It is all that
I have.