Missing the Picture

Back in 1999, a shrimper boat named Shellfish went down under the Savannah River.

The Captain pulled out alone that day. It was a Sunday. The weather was overcast and balmy as usual. Towards the coast, blowing off the Atlantic, big freight cargo ships make their way in, huge and slow. Their undertow can be ruthless. The Captain of the Shellfish needed a lucky strike. Solo, he could earn five times more, but risk his life and his boat. The idea was to throw three anchors. One from the starboard side, one from the larboard side, and one off the bow.

Sheer Edges

^^^^^^^^Scribble^^^scribble^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^..........^^^staircases^^^^^^^^*******************motion**************^^^^^^^^^^meteorites^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^~~~~~~~~~~~~feeble might tower down cradle of wealth>>>>>>>^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^~~~~~~off into oblivion^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^~~~~~~~~~miners town^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^creaking bark^^^^^^^^^~~~~~~sweethearts^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^~~~~~~~~~~~~~>.............^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^sometimes luck strikes^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ they find meaning, this filthy mess washed off^^ your lips are cracked and bloody^^^^^^^^^dragging your sillhouette couch and porch chairs and stairs cliff dwelling^^^finger prick^^^dining out^^^shepards pie^clear sky^ dark days over head projector^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^Useless analytical^^^^^^^^^ crawling horses on carpeted houseboats/giving grief to grief and relief to death/and one emotionless rambling could sell for a dollar to bum washing windows in doorway arches/ happily humble and alone/ can't match himself with a home/ I smile and chew bones/ and lean into Catalina, by the back of her neck was a burning cigarette/ chalked out a landing spot / give me money or give me land! I, I, I, there is a hassle in the headland of this man, to get off the ground you must stand! Jolt! Bolt throw your whispers of a dream!
Did you ever wonder about anything? YOu can use different words in quotations to spell out a laugh from a crowd, a boo, hiss so loud, spilling out empty reminders of an evil that controls or does so if we pay it any mind. A mind that softens with a chance at first bite of fresh plants to loosen the gravel of juice that consumes me. Oh think not! Suffer is a mother sending a letter to a sailor not knowing they'll never get it inside underwater locker. and they tear down pictures, slip slide away on white rectangular horses to the sunny charm half smiling coat tails of reality.
On edges of hillsides that stand aside seaside, then boatride to island aptly named after her carriage maiden. Countess Arusula, Peter Banning, Henry Capolli, Janette Stauffermyre, Applin Hearndon, Bunson Bridges, Cary Nethman, Wanda Roundabit, Earnie Stanton, Bill Wills, Sir Allan Goud. Mostly these are the handles of fellow travelers aboard Ship Number 9. Cracking the barrel to give up hope, when they live on something that floats. Very fitting. Metaphor of faith. Spring life into thee! Challenge the well of discovery and as its been said, we'll shed the dead skin living under our fingernails...that's what it looks like. An example. A pamphlet, leaflet tree of rings inside the forest of things. We were once a forest, quiet and tall, short and fallen, lushest of density, matter for the taking. Of the weather we are like the flicker after a lightning strike. Storm over sun, ray upon ray, beam of eternal, light darkens night in the shine of a fire.

To face the sun willing
like a fish to the fryer
is to burn the moon
with its back to the fire
as crackling thorn glows
the rose unfortunes the wither.

I think it came to me now.... when there are no thoughts that spring from your head, you remove the stone that blocks the hole. and, with opened head, you must write about every step and decision you make, day by day, hour by hour. Strictly, rigidly and religiously. Write down the moment your eyes open til the break of movement. From the sunrise in your underwear freezing, to the burnt french toast with cinnommon you couldn't eat because your headache was so strong as you tried to resize a photograph invitation of your nephew's baptism instead, and I wrapped it up for you in a paper towel to take with you to school. I stayed back and cleaned all the dishes and fed the cats a leftover corn on the cob chunk, drank two glasses of cranberry juice, and gathered my things to leave.

So there I was.

The father of time watches me abatedly brashen withered wicked horrible to describe by a lifetime. There is bad weather about every corner. The Great Noah has his arms spread out like a harbor. His hands catch the incoming ships like butterflies. The Four Horsemen wait upon a faultline. The four volcanoes of the northwestern americas. These boiling mountains crack the empire's truth sirum. The father of time laughs and his circlular dance gets faster and faster, and his tail stretches further and further. Every mythical god laughs and dances or becomes filled with more power, as we believe in nothing. Maybe God himself, has no time for fathers and horsemen, only mothers and children.

QUOTABLE QUOTES

"When a traveler doesn't spend his time moving by foot
he travels his mind with more haste."

"Know not the fear of forgetting every thing and thistle."

"Invent the wheel again for me would ya?"

"If Dr. Suit comes in with Nurse Hello, you're gonna be there a lot longer."

"when that comes, will you stop complaining?

"You welcome the evening as much as the morning."

"Every cigarette tastes less and less."

"When it comes Green, New American Vegetarian, leave your teeth at the door."

My inner voice is that of a world bygone and only in musty books in sunny soft days of the bookstores there in, Hood River, Oregon. Off the boat for a while trying to find something to get in to, besides after the usual pool game we came traipsing out of, I was already hit by wanting to find nostalgia and sentimentality of course, I’m alone in far- from-home small town lit by exciting faces that want to be making brew and catching the wind in their surfing sails, and sipping lattes of spit or looking for credit. A town indeed known for this, and the silence that wind creates around stirred conversation. I find cool dusty two storied record shop and buy two records. Both second-time purchases for I cannot recall where my first copies were lost to, most likely in someone’s house behind the wall unit warped. I spend most of my time either on the grass of the University, or in Artifacts book store, where the counter help is a wise older looking woman with typical thin rectangular glasses that sit half way down on her nose with opened button-down purple macramé sweater and she’s looking at me, watching to see if I’m apt to steal a thing or two, but I surprise her with a few questions about the history of her shop instead. And the coffee shop next door is too modern and dull to explain its interiors, but fitting because the coffee was bad. Nonetheless, it does the job of keeping me walking and I go as far as my time left until I have to rush back to the boat dock will let me. I discover train tracks that follow the rivers edge, and imagine the length they lead into the nothingness yellow hills of Idaho and Montano, pondering still how useful the trains are these days. I think about James Kurilla on railroad jobs through Minnesota, and how if it were cold I might be wearing the weathered scarf or flipping up the collar to walk alone beside the tracks, walking back from my railroad shift having been left off at the last notch in those railroad ties. Buy a pack of filterless Stanton cigarettes just to seek that feeling of that time, and then, nostalgia and sentimentality would be mine. For I am the grandson of Old Weird America, and of a lost country that will never be again, wrapped up in remembering then, while sleeping generations grow up unlearning old lessons.

In 2001, the Year of Our Dear, after I had taken a seaman's job out of the Sound, I decided that I'd not live in an imovable house, but go wishy washy on a riverboat for a while. Looking out the window of a train heading south i was watching the river flow over my shoulder. Portland bound, i was portland bound to be a sailor. From there the Columbia River took me wherever I'd let it take me. Scappoose, Ridgefield, St. Helens, Kalama up the river. Rainer, Calthlamet, Skamokawa and you bet, Astoria. Then back the opposite direction floating along the dividing line that separated washingtyne and oregyne. I ran once naked up a mountain and saw Idaho, I was on top of a giant potato. In all my spud youth. I worked the toilets and I worked the beds. I worked the tables. The fork the knife and the bread. I worked the kitchen and the dishes I washed. I washed the fork, the knife, the spoon and the pots. I worked the deck, the ropes, the bouys, the net. I won the charm, the smile, the nod, the arm, the bet.
So many jobs upon a river tender. Working my time from beginning to end. . Drinks close by. A big splash in the water during the week a few times. Holdin my shoes up kicking my legs. In that green river water.

It's 12:55 in the beginning of the morning. There's a storm outside. a thunderstorm. some lightning. whipping wind and dirt. one hundred six degrees of electricity friction sky. the palm trees are bending. the tin is rattling. the old wood roof creaks and twists. swirls of wind make hanging chimes whistle forcefully. but then, sudden silence. a calm. a rest. until the sweeping wind picks up and the wood pile stack falls over! Through windows the wind sounds like crashing waves. The tree's branches slap the house. The shutter smacks its frame! The dustwind cloud is slowly rolling in. flickery street lights in the grainy haze. the monsoons are late this summer.it's the first day of september.welcome storms.

if I go
would you need me
will you meet me
half way there
if i don't show
would you believe me
when its easy
to careless
on the road, at night, sometimes, I am blinded
by the repetious dark
and the tricks on my eyes

if you wait for me
does the good and the evil
seem to be the only thing
that matters
when I'm in rome
dear I swear I too stand,alone
under the angels
and latters
and if you come at dawn, always, I am lonely
from all the useless beauty
here without you
but with a midnight prayer, the road disappears and
you haunt me, you don't want me
here without you

"A Lover Not Lover"

Lover, I am lost
I lay ragged alone
I have couped myself up
in a room, I search
for you and your song
I search and I search and
I long.

Lover, like you, I belong
Like you I belong to me
As though poisoned were not me
As though pure as can be
Like a fool's dream

But Lover, a fool I am
Or a fool I have become
With broken spirit
and wilted heart numb
You are gone, you are gone
I am lost and still
I long.

SHORT POEMS

89-A
Southwestern turquiose handmade jewelry case
sad proud humiliation on the roadside.

A BROWSE.
Thank you
Nod head quickly
look her in the eyes
keep walking.

OF PHOENIX.
Hot air
baffoon lives
we lead,
miscellaneous
drab.

TALK RADIO.
The sound of a drill
rotating on high speed
through my ear drums
grinding the brain
Free FM
Free FM
Free FM.

KS PORK EATING 2006
Kansas city's pork contestants
chew like vicious rabbits
with something to lose

The other night I was talking with my bandmates about the will or the want to get up in the morning. Furthermore intense, we pondered what makes people have the will to live, or the will to move about through life. While some people get up in an hurry, or travel from place to place with an idea or an expectation, others never ponder the fact that they have the power to change their own life by doing it themselves. It's easy to get caught up in the "standard" way of living, we as americans know. It's easy to be in that world of suburbs, strip malls, fast food eating, large corporate shopping, driving the car everywhere, working 9-5, watching too much television, getting lazy, losing the vision to your heart and soul, your passion, your spirit. Maybe it's easier for these things to cloud your life if you have an unhealthy relationship with your mate or your family or your social scene; if you excess on drugs or alcohol; if you've never had drive or goals for your life. Maybe it's just that all of the "standard" things I described above turn you into this drooling, lethargic american that is so sadly everywhere. Lets consider an alternate way of living; one that employs your creativity, one that keeps you in touch with your soul and your spirit, one that supplies you with warmth to your heart, blank.

Ladies and gentlemen, there's something behind your neck that smells oddly like mustard gas. Or is that sulphur? I worked at mid-level market research firm in Seattle washington in 2003. I talked on the phone to different people continusly for hours. I asked them about their health. I asked them about their employment, about their ethnicity; their income; their insurance; their martial status; their mental stability; their diseases; their sexual preferences; their sexual behavior, but never their credit card. Up on the 3rd floor we were all generally fucked up. I met some oddball folks working there.

Len was a giagantous, curly-orange long-haired, bearded, intensely freckled, 43 year old, lunch box carrying ex-convict; recently released. He wore shorts that were affendingly small and tight that skinny, young bicyclists would wear in the seventies. Usually they were aqua-blue and he would wear an aqua-blue, red, black, and white stripped t-shirt. He rode his bike to work and wore those damn shorts even in the dead of a rainy, washington winter. His skin was harmfully tan in the summer. His fuzzy, matted beard was a mixture of brown, gray, red, and white wires that had no equaling length. He talked with a moaning drag at the end of every thing he said; which was likely to regard sci-fi B movies, particularily the ones directed by Fritz Lang. Het ate the same thing every day; sardines with Tabasco sauce on bread. Every day. At the same time listening to something on his pocket radio and looking out the third story breakroom window. If he spoke during his lunch, his words were usually followed by sporatic flying bits of food.

My cubicle was aside a very large, warm, carismatic black buddist women's named Simrajah. My working space was always very stark and cold because I never wanted to mentally invest myself in my job and the time I spent there because it would quickly turn me into a depressed monster. I had to separate my life outside of work from my life at work so much though that I wouldn't decorate my cubicle with personal flair. I enjoyed the feeling that I was always on the move and could have another job, or live in another town without notice. I believed that if I put up a bunch of pictures and brought stuff from home, then I would turn into the same zombie dead-end man as the people around me who had been working there for twenty years.

it's 2;11 where are you, my love?

"genova night prayer"

Blessed are the days and moments of reflection and harmony with life
The seconds of clarity and contentment
To put it all in prospective
The answer is there and purer then ever
Times of frozen photographs in my mind
The tree grows taller and counts it's years in circles
The same for my own hurtles and revolutions
Talk to me when I thought I had it all figured out
You'll know the change has come about
A hundred foreign stamps, pound notes, and pence
You'll know where to go when you're gone
Forlorn grasps to history and ending lines,
reveal repeating past signs of the time
In one nights sleep, I could wake up all my harboring beasts,
and swiftly order them all to retreat
You showed me sands of many colors and faces of many brothers
Even a love that was thought to be freedom,

you slaved me to the truth again
And forever you will, amen

I CANNOT WAIT ANOTHER DAY
TO FIND TRUTH
BURIED
BENEATH THE SANDS
OF A DEEP LAGOON
HIDDEN
FROM THE SUN AND MOON
SHINING
FOR MY EYES
FROM A SHADOWY ROOM

I HAVE ENOUGH WEIGHT
TO SURVIVE MORE THAN A DAY
WITHOUT THE NEED FOR FOOD
WITH THE PAIN
I CAN SUSTAIN
I CAN ENDURE
I WOULD NOT COMPLAIN
I WILL REMAIN
STEADFAST IN FASTING

Hammers and nails, windows and doors; carriage makers swindle; pigeons for breakfast; stones overhang like nervousness; caught light in the sun morning; leopards of health; spotted medallion on the legs of blind martyrs; orphanage blanket holding for comfort; hair in the drain; the noise of bricks thrown in a wheelbarrow; the hiss of steam from a gas main; walking past old houses looking.

Poem of two years past inducted to the American Poets Society June 2003

Riflessione Di Voi In Italia.

Karmacropolis make up your mind.
East bound until swimming
Wash upon shores weightless
Fishing with food and no hooks.
Day bows into moonfilled night
Life walks and huddles with scarves,
Alley kisses cobblestone marbles
Saints smile from doorway arches,
While love leans against the wall.
Forgetting never the moment
Nor the full moon's mysterious caress,
Vowing returnal for the first time.
Gleaming beautifully without words
Breaking fog of dawn
Tunnels through the broken hillside
Lush of life's rooted churches
Feel God close to the ground.
Mama Maria in the Piazza
Look upon gazes of pity for some.
Neptune statue of lime green skin,
Fishes prophet, though not a man's.
Captivity for the sharks.
Unmistakable eyes reappear
Mistaking the distance between memory and touch.
Heart is to hot as the hands are too cold
Shivering inside wools of comfortable warmth
Moonlight shapes a path once again
Casting hazy gloss to the painting
Breathing the closest breath willing.
Wanting the closest, and waiting.