Poem: Hidden In a Closet

 

Hidden In a Closet

dogged fonts mass into scaffolds,

constrict a page, tumble and fall,

again and again,

until a notebook lays crying,

bloated in blue and smudge.

 

bound to spiral, 

the notebook wobbles a little, 

a limp bird curling down,

flapping a bit under dirty clothes,

caught in a closet’s moth-eaten throat

with all the other notebooks.

 

it's a slush pile within a slush pile, 

guts of ink that bristle with secrets:

lust sobbed, monsters inflicted,

a tender dash of care so bright and yet vulnerable, 

so weak.

 

so many stupid, flawed young hopes, 

expressed so wrong, either trite 

or jabberwocky, fantasy so daring

mauled by a gryphon.

many, many wings of marred paper

multiply in the closet, scrounging, it feels,

each and every one of them a seed, 

never to rise, never to blossom,

never to fly or erupt.

===============================

10/16/25 ... 

Homeless J Story -- Completely Edited

 Back in 2010, I wrote a story on this blog from the perspective of "Homeless J."  A lot of the writing in this story was absolutely hideous.  I just had to edit it, so I have.   I am still quite ambivalent, at best, about the project.  And yet there are some good points in it.  And some poetic moments.  It is not quite as hideous as before, at least ...   

Fly Well In The Dark,

Owl

PS:  The formatting is bad on some of the entries, due to changes in google-blog format over the years.  I don't know how to fix it.

PPS:  If you see any older entries you want edited, let me know.  A lot of them are awful.

=========

Part I

Part 2

Part III

Part 4

Part 5

Part 6

Part 7

Part 8

Part 9

Part 10

Part 11

Part 12

Part 13

Part 15

Part 16

===================

Poem: Night Window

 

Night Window

a dog's whine wavers above whispery leaves,

such a howl-whimper rollercoaster,

 

nothing to hold onto

in the torturous sound;

 

and yet i will not admit to myself, 

tucked in bed,

that it forces me to pray.

 

so late, and yet 

there’s much absence of quiet in the silence.

 

stray chirps.  deodar and ash rustles.

a lone screech of rubber tire.

 

there’s too much pregnancy of risk

for me to sleep.

 

of ruttish feline duet.

of chuffing semi-truck, 

or gruff jet plane.

 

funny how my breaths

interlap as easy as purls of a river,

 a sedative measured in doses of breath.

can they, i wonder,

override the night window’s invitation?

================================

8/1/24

Poem: Sturve Slough

 

 

Sturve Slough

 

a few fence posts list,

chewed green by pond scum,

a fading remember of the long-gone farmers

who first parceled the slough.

 

it can relax now,

perimetered by a shield of official gravel.

adored, no less, by a boxy plaza.

a pink Holiday Inn hugs the water

like an aggressive cheek.

 

before the farmers,

the land was sacred,

an oasis of water and animal visions.

voices of spirit and ancestry.

 

now it is a money-maker,

 nouveau primordial:

a curio for the tourists, 

sparkling, now and then,

sun scampery on oozy flesh.

 

when the moon thrives high,

a babble of frogs blurt tepid moans.

ducks bob and flip,

silent, busy assassins, nothing more,

 

gorging on croaking fruit

in the onyx water.

======================

ed. 8/1/24

Watsonville, CA

2002

Poem: Abandoned

 

Abandoned

 

who will save

this vast orphanage,

a forest of lost souls

reaching out with leaf-like hands?

 

who left them to shamble 

before callous lawyers who bark?

who abandoned them

to soil and shadow?

 

who

would do this?

clothe them in tatters

while they crane on limbs starved

for a sunny drop to eat?

 

beadles scuttle by,

possessive in their gaze.

who left these lost, fragile children

vulnerable to such insects?

 

where is God?

what innocence?

========================

8/20/25 ... removed a word

8/2/24... don't like this poem ...

11/29/23.... lots of edits... 

Poem: Aria Of Was

 

Aria Of Was

 

fiery palms 

clasp through long goodbyes,

failures to exit which cling 

with the audacity of a tomb.

 

i will not kiss again,

no chisel can extend the was of my lips.

no pyramid of joys to reclimb.

sometimes my face, even so, 

chances to reform on a sweep of wind,

much like 

the passion of rain, which 

strums ocean’s blue breadth, 

gone-down drops of phrase,

so it was and so 

i played the fields of love,

heaving for a while

 and yet

it was a music of solos,

and the ocean, in the end, 

stands alone.

hearts gone in storms,

just like that, and 

cannot cure what caskets store

in their cold unfeeling 

wooden breasts.

=========================================

9/16/25 .. not mine

8/2/24 .eds... epitaph

Poem: A Fair Morning

 

A Fair Morning

 

golden bees

and fuchsia rubies.

foxglove in sways of lust

while breeze strums by,

such a lazy troubadour.

 

clover feasts all morning,

plush of scent

till stalks are drunk,

too many swards 

of lilliputian dancers

and

 

brash gushes of sun,

which grace raptures of leaves.

how lucky they are,

worshipped and worshipping

the verdancy.

=======================

 

Poem: Global Warming

 

Global Warming

 

the merciless sun,

it curdles science before the first breath

of an honest phrase.

 

no words of fact.

replaced by the joints of ants

who swell dutiful and aching

over sand that swells to eat them 

even as it erodes.

 

lies and lies and lies 

in lines and lines and lines

march through eyes and brains and breaths

to follow all the other busy lines of lies

burning themselves out

in the red chew of destiny.

they who bow the most know the least,

and in the drone of staid obeisance

never see their 'Higher Purpose'

fry the wings off its creations.

=====================================

9/5/25 

7/23/25 ... eds

8/3/24 eds