At these prices

at these prices
you would expect
the bread to be
sliced by Jesus himself,
offering himself
with a can of grape juice,
on special .

under these ceilings
a heart might stop
in awe as the neck
cranes back for
a view of arches
detailed with angels
and their bosses
with not a cobweb to
disturb their conference,

with names like these
on plates this ornate,
you aren't sure if your
about to eat a meal
or commit some crime
against decorum,

in a city whose ills
slip under the
short circuiting radar,
it's easy to dream
with eyes wide upon,
sitting straight up
in your chair
in amazing taverns
overlooking a Pacific Ocean
that is black
as secret ink when
there's no sun to shine
on the coast
that's been carved up
and built upon
and otherwise carted away
in trucks to landfills
where nothing grows
but resentments and
gun registration,

every newspaper sold
from corner machines
tells you what day this is,
each email asks you
to get thinner, richer,
bigger than jackhammers,

at these prices
who could afford
not to spend
a little more, scrape
some more shavings from
the credit card
and dampen the
scream under the lamp
by the pier on a night
when clouds and sunsets
riot in swirls that make this city
tremble and quake under the boots
you wore to work?

Get Somewhere

The taste of fruits
and the tang of juices

make this morning
slog as slow as the milk

that drips from the cracked cereal bowl,
rivulets of white beading toward the edge

of the table,

I dream while waking of airplanes
in clouds with glimmers from the window
of parched rural roads
etched between mountain tops,

nothing tastes as good as
the meals I wished I ordered
when someone else was paying,

it's clicks and small motors starting up
in air conditioning units
that wake me up the last desperate inches,

the headlines make too much noise
when there is so much thinking to be done
before desert,

Lake Milk meets the Brawny storm front,
citizen corn flakes rejoice!

The shoes are on the right feet,
the wrist watch and glasses remain where I left them,
I have one hour to get somewhere.

See ya.

Long Enough

You've feasted on the daily bread
long enough to see a trail of ants
coming over the mountain cushions
toward the gulch between cereal bowl and serving plant.

I have sat behind the wheel
of a car I cannot drive
long enough to know the drive way
is a place of static electricity
coursing under the asphalt
just as the sun reaches the center
of the noon time air
and turns the radiance into spearing prisms
and cause the car to seem
to meld with the side of the house,
indistinguishable from milk box, garden hose,
or engine parts from a lost freezer box.

All of us have stood
long enough
in line to remember
the tide of birthdays
that come at you
from a crowded calendar,
who is around and who
cannot return a phone call,
the window we await
remains a point
at the end of a long stick,
none of this furniture
puts us at ease,
the noises are as familiar
as a chorus of breakfast table coughs and sighs,
the slow trickle of light
crawling in from under the door.

I am made of money

At the edge of things
that come in threes,
death,
taxes,
rent,

tongue to envelope glue,
twitchy finger on
mouse
to submit
the rent of the atmosphere
we've chosen to live in,

Paradise isn't for everyone
and there's only
a handful of
empty rooms to go around,
only so much
floor space
to stretch your feet,
these rights
must be protected
and paid for,

which is another way of saying
who needs to eat
or get across town
on bus routes
that are getting scarcer
than crumbs
on an orphan's plate,

let's get beyond our worries,
let's live in the present tense,

I am made of money
until the last
stitch goes
and all I was worth
falls to the floor,
is swept up
and sold as story
someone can scare their grand children with.

san francisco

lost again in alley scrubs seeking a straight path among inclining bricks buildings odd and sharp as needles loom over us all braving a short walk home, canyons of cracked asphalt and singular puddles alive with oil cans and rainbows that spread out in decaying circles concentric and amorphous at once, greased and glistening from stuttering lights hanging over a servants entrance of a restaurant kitchen where we seen strange men in white aprons and t-shirts wield their professional knives and hoist more trays of filthy dishes to a crowded aluminum counter, long cars and short cabs drive by on the main street we walk to, past dumpsters and cardboard condominiums exposing an arm or leg only half concealed during a dream of rain, the slurred hissing of tires on the street, someone shaking a bell, store fronts lit bright in righteously fake light of heaven, something is about to erupt over the spires that prod the clouds full of northern rain, there's not a taxi anywhere as we stand there full of food and shivering in the wind.

Home

I am lesser than the sum of
the parts |
you found for me
after the trains arrived
and the ships rolled in
with waves brown
with old dreams
and dead fish,

medals for my chest
and steel for my knees
that never buckled
nor knelt before
strange aromas
of cash reward.
I kept my nerve
and protected
the shelves
that held each and every pot
our futures were contained in,

spiders and houseflies
come and go
as their nature pleases them to do,
the mail comes
and rests out of reach
until knees and will power
match their reserves
to match the staircase
if only to find out
the name of the
newest debt
that was invisible
until the uniform is exchanged
for an average man's clothes,
used and slightly too large,
threads from the pant leg
dragging along the floor,

coming undone
each image that flashes bearing flag and brand name,
undone and peeling
to expose not green fields
but only brick
and generations of
calcified glue
that replaced the smiling faces
with hysterical smiles
we've worn
as we enter into the night
alone and without reward.

Three women

So these are the faces
of your summers and falls
that have gone by
like billboards
zooming by in passenger car windows,

your daughters
bought funny hats
and baggy jeans,

you walked
where trees and canyons
met with canyon walls,

three women framed
by sunsets
and early dew or frost
conditioned with respective decades
of reading, of being read to,

reading the lines
of faces that seem
the roads between
the cities you called home,

these are
spaces I've felt
in the space between
my bones,
the sense of place
and purpose
nameless and untouchable
'though I've yearned
for years
for what I thought I knew,

but it's wonderful
to be between all the chatter
and each smile
and grimace you could manage,

it's goes unsaid
and we'll leave there, as is.