Automatic
Pilot
I enter the room automatic pilot
not knowing why I came in.
Maybe for something nostalgic?
A picture, Scotch tape, scissors?
There's this sense of missing
without knowing what is lost.
My mind's the Land of Empty,
wits dulled by sun and wind.
Little sticks to the horizontal—
heat waves, a narrow road,
stumps in a desert lacking
cacti, snakes, a friendly skull.
Thoughts tumbleweed on to the next room
clouds moving fast through my head.
Freeway March
On 280 to San Francisco, driving my insomnia north,
Fighting mergers in these opening rounds of freeway.
Wife sits in back seat, Mother-In-Law up front.
Steel rail keeps us from people heading south.
Typical is one human per car, steering empty
Seats. No penalty for being alone, no car pool lane
To make you feel guilty. Cowboy in Bronco rides the range.
Lexus woman yawns. I cough. Bob's Supply Co. van
Speeds up, passes. Most drive with both hands on wheel,
Hands at 2 and 10. Service is 10 a.m. How we separate deter
Mines height of sky. Ceiling fogs. Mother-In-Law looks
Forward to "Russian goodies" after service. Wife wants roses
Sent to Great Aunt's home, not Mausoleum. Funeral talk.
Church is Russian Orthodox. Coats hang in back seat
Next to Wife. Umbrella waits in trunk. We pass flat tire,
Car jacked up, hazard lights, a man sprawled on asphalt
Shoulder. Remember the Good Samaritan? I worry about
32 p.s.i. in all my tires. We pass one another through air,
On air, on routine missions to air-conditioned offices.
Mother-In-Law mentions squirrels eating peanuts on
Fences. We watch one another through glass and mirrors,
Spill coffee on the sunrise. Freedom means talk on
Phone, snap on clip-ons, shave with a portable, drink from
The stained walls of a mug. Blue signs advertise Call Box
Every 200 yards. Telephone lines loop over
280, wires joining voices. Mother-In-Law speaks
Birthday lunch, Van Gogh Show, realizing
Claustrophobia in the underground garage.
I remember Great Aunt's porch blooming roses, trellis a
Wall of orange blossoms. Lemon trees yellow and green.
Wife asks Mother if she's feeling cold. Mother-In-Law
Pulls on sweater. Look at all that traffic moving south.
>From the back seat, Wife throws me a kiss in the rear-
View mirror—I catch it, carry it far beyond our exit.
Her
He waits in the bedroom. Windows face the street she takes to find him.
A Dutch Elm on the front lawn reaches into Heaven. He lies across her bed,
watching for headlights.
He hears the usual: children being hustled off the street by parents.
There are protests. He smells macaroni-and-cheese on a neighbor's stove.
He is relieved their day has ended. The children think they own the
street—they mark the sidewalks with colored chalk, bounce balls, ride bicycles
over the asphalt. But when the sun dies, they surrender claim. He
owns this corner of the dark world.
He likes the house without light, without sound. He needs the street
empty, the house black. The only light he wants is her light, the only
sound is her sound.
Light enters the room, fades. A car door squeaks, shuts, then footsteps
over the dead leaves. He hunts through windows, sees her take the walkway,
her face moving through moon and stars.
Lift
Hate reflection?
Creams don't help?
Face slackening?
A loss of youth?
Solution: laser
the skin
over cheekbones.
Try it.
Defy gravity.
Think of the skin
as wrapping.
Cut and stretch
the fabric.
Pain killers disguise
the laser act.
Wounds hidden
in hair.
Black-and-blue
for a month.
The delicate pain
of beauty.
Face tight and triangular.
Eyes big and bulging.
Aloha, wrinkles.
Hurts to smile.
Hurts to cry.
At 50,
every skull
needs
some
window dressing.
Clouds
Today is a series of blows
As storm clouds move off the Pacific
To invade the shore.
They drift their darkness east
For the Atlantic—
Over Democratic fields, community gardens.
Cows graze up with their eyes
Chew the shadowed blue
Before the slaughter.
Grass colds.
Wind shakes the trees
Rubs limbs against walls.
House moans the blows, tortures.
Observations
during Insomnia
Moonlight and shadow puzzle the floor.
Window blinds blind only when closed.
There's cool in the dark throat of the fireplace.
Sympathy flowers wilt on the table. A friend
In another city wants me to mail pain
Killers. My prescription turns illegal.
The tomatoes in the basket are still life
Ripened on the community garden vine.
Crickets give the night a heartbeat. Nocturnal
Animals bring blood to the backyard; hides cruise
Through eucalyptus. Dog lives with planets,
Venus at zenith over his doghouse. He ignores
Trespassers using the steady moon.
Pants hang in disarray on Cat's chair.
Lover waits in dream for my return: last
Month she risked everything for our son.
Flesh surrounds my pulse. Cat slinks to window.
Moon blazes forward, shadows the mortal hours.
Van Gogh Vision
1.
Hear helicopter? she asks.
Not helicopter, I say,
Just fan carving
Our morning, cutting
Dreams from their moorings.
Birds on front lawn
Retreat to the Dutch Elm.
2.
Inside sculptured head of
Van Gogh on library lawn
Is nest. When chicks hatched,
When they flew off
Through Van Gogh's eyes,
They became visions
Feathering into blue.
the year of
implants
She left her husband of thirty years and declared war on age. She knew
there was nothing sexy about a double chin, yellow teeth, and soft breasts.
Her goal was to be as hard as a statue in a Roman garden.
During liposuction she knew she'd find a lover. Her first condition was
that this lover have money—she refused to be a sugar mamma. Her second
was that he know how to barbecue.
She married a restaurateur thirty years younger the year of her breast implants.
The Belt
A man inherits a belt. In the evening, he drops his inheritance into a pot
of boiling water and makes belt soup. It tastes delicious.
That night, the man dreams he's a boy getting spanked. "I'm sorry,
Daddy! I'm sorry Daddy!" His father's face floats like a sweaty
moon.
In the morning, the man fishes the belt out of the pot. He throws it into
the fireplace. He has never enjoyed the smell of burning leather this
much.
Under the
Koawood Table
Angry legs. Feet that scream. A woman wearing red slippers chases a
man around a koawood table. She has his hammer—she found it above the
washing machine, in the cupboard where the man keeps tools. Now he runs in
circles, running in heavy shoes.
"Please, honey, please!" he begs.
"You bloody kanaka!" she shouts.
Voices bleed through koa. The wood shudders.
The fight? Another accident. He came home late. She spilled a
glass of milk across the Santa Claus tablecloth. He raised his voice.
She went straight for the cupboard.
Two boys are under the dining room table. I'm younger. We hunch
together in our island of shade. I cry. But brother cries
more—uncontrollable. When will he stop? I try keeping up, until
the outside light blurs. I smell Christmas Tree. But I still see the
calves raging in the lady's legs. The tablecloth is her skirt. The
man runs fast, running in dark pants.
They circle, dancing for our tears.
All writing © to author listed here. |
