In a perfect world...



The 4 faces chiseled in Mt. Rushmore

would be Johnny, Kris, Waylon, and Willie

OJ Simpson would be stamping out vanity plates

alongside the unabomber in San Quentin.

every wanna-be Doctor, Priest, and Lawyer, made to watch

Paul Newman in "The Verdict" at least 50 times

and a public school education would include mining the mother lode

of irony found in the life and times of Muhammad Ali



In a perfect world...



the Government would not find it necessary to spend 50 million bucks

trying to prove the president committed adultery and lied about it

the NRA would wither up and die due to lack of interest,

Its army of Lobbyist picked off one by one through random gunfire

the camouflaged, soldier of misfortune, pin-headed, bubba-boys

would collectively decide themselves

not smart enough to exercise the right to vote

And every child would know deep and sustaining Love

from those in charge of caring for them



In a perfect world...



I could lay all day on the beach

soaking up Pacific Ocean Sun without burning my ass off

my 1970, Olds F-85, with the 396,

would get better gas mileage the faster I drove it

like maybe 100 miles per gallon at 100 miles per hour

there would fantastic, hole in the wall,

Mexican food joints on every street corner

with plenty of fresh Tortillas, Habeneros, and ice cold Negra Modelo

and "Baby Doll" with the wandering eye,

would magically see George Clooney

every time she looked my way, causing her to re-think monogamy

dead men

don't care what the surgeon general thinks

dead men

drive around with no place to go

dead men

figure the come-on at the end of the bar, more trouble than she's worth

dead men

hold alcohol in a medicinal light

dead men

will sleep in their work clothes

dead men

never have to RSVP

dead men

buy cars, and smokes, based solely on price

dead men

avoid eye contact at any cost

dead men

doodle on the obituary page

dead men

drive on bald tires with cracked windshields.

dead men

accept with resignation, the next days hangover

dead men

listen to Coltrane, and Davis, start to finish, no interruptions

dead men

don't floss

dead men

will take their Sake cold

dead men

take the long way to work

dead men

don't sweat expiration dates

dead men

never wear bandages

dead men

are past blaming anyone

dead men

see horse-shit and diamonds the same

dead men

don't care where the candle-wax falls

dead men

forget what day of the week it is

dead men

can't get to sleep at night, can't wake up in the morning

dead men

have nothing in their hands

dead men

never ask another chance

dead men

have stopped trying to make sense

dead men

play dumb when they know they're being lied to

dead men

have made the connection between sorrow and desire

after losing the one thing he loves

a dead man will spend the rest of his days

anesthetizing the past

pouring gasoline on the future



dead men

have no fear of dying the second time

maybe the angel watching over me

strikes a match along the corner of my eye

the way them TV outlaws use their cowboy boots

whenever they need to light up a smoke



or maybe the skittish ghost of a firefly

tries to engage me in blind man's mystic bluff

I turn to look-too late-I miss it

left to ponder the validity of the hidden message



it happens all the time beyond the borders

micro sunspot surfing the line of sight

Marlboro angel in a nicotine fit

fires up when God looks the other way

What Miles Davis was

to melody

John Coltrane was

to virtuosity.

black giants

in white-bread world

mixing up a masterpiece

branding iron hot-ice house cool

tornadoes and sea breezes

shouts and whispers

bold slashing strokes-precise, razor thin lines

the frenetic energy of a humming bird

the economized motion of a crow

muted trumpet-raging tenor sax

"Kind of blue"

2 of a kind

heaven squared

Smoke ring in a windstorm

old man with blindfold and cigarette

at the university he had "shown promise"

was called a "diamond in the rough"

but the years have gotten away from him

he pissed away his time

now he waits for the phone to ring

for Gabriel to call and ask if he has one last request



from the beginning desire had been a map without names

never sure where he was or where he was going

change made for the sake of change

point A to point B in a car painted primer gray

he drank too much-slept too much

read too much-chased "easy" too much

never finished the book he had been writing

for the last 24 years



now the Rambler sits on blocks

the manuscript lost somewhere in the attic

he calls himself "invisible man on blue planet"

the events of his life written in disappearing ink

nothing to offer as evidence of having circled the Sun

staring at the autumn sky, chain smoking, sipping tea,

he waits for the angels to raise their rifles

and take him home

in these late breaking days

rebellion has become

the most ragged of fashion statements

the banality of it symbolized

by certain

hairstyles, cigarettes, rock bands, automobiles

saltpeter-fueled revolution

defiance institutionalized



from our home entertainment centers

we see, we hear,

the latest corporate anti-heroes

as they sun themselves

along the banks of the mainstream

mega stars

idolized by thundering herds

spilling forth

from the nearest shopping mall



if you were to ask me

I would tell you:



lovers with a cause

are the real rebels



the spiritual benefactors,

the wounded heroes,

the mystics eternally misunderstood



with fine grit paper

working against the grain

hands slivered and bleeding

creating hidden beauty



in time

floating free-form

defying the gravity

of power, greed, envy...

detached-disconnected



born anew



these spirit artists become suspect

a kind of threat to social order

to be burned at a stake

nailed to a cross

assassinated by sniper fire



getting them out of the way

we make martyrs of  them

the dead don't scare us

the way living flesh and bone does

it's easier to glorify a touched up past

than face a future

we seem hell-bent on desecrating



one by one

all are shot down





...and when the fields where the wildflowers grow

have been bulldozed and destroyed

then spring is gone

and what's left

is a sort of somber confusion

as hard to define

as that 4 letter word

we so readily cut and paste

to fit our purpose

where am I going with this?



(stuck mid-sentence)



the point of my explanation

eludes me



I could blame it on strong drink

or old age

or on the houdini like skills

of a much younger woman

who decided there were better things

than being shackled to a crazy man



me



but she can't shoulder all the blame

maybe the trouble really was booze

or the impotency of being "long in the tooth"

or the nights of rage

when I felt old and drunk

and like screaming at her

or anyone else who happened to get in the way

for reasons I now don't remember



she was the closest I ever came...



sorry...



what was the question?

somewhere far below

valley of shimmering silicon

hidden beneath dying branches

of a train track Willow

2 Mexican v-necks work up a good buzz

drinking malt liquor-swapping lies

cross-tie compadres

with all the accouterments of the homeless

loosely thrown into a Safeway food cart

Henry laughs at Ricardo

"mas cerveza cabron"



the Hispanic boys can see themselves

in the tinted glass of a southbound commuter

on the inside-upper deck-Lawrence-marketing wunderkind

studies a memo regarding changes

in the company's 401K plan

8 hours of giving corporate head-home he goes

it's Thursday-that means Pasta and Seinfeld

one more day of tap dancing and the weekend is his

Saturday he's got tickets to see Jagger and the Stones



Ricardo picks up a small rock

he likes the feel of the granite in his hands

carefully setting aside the can of King Cobra

he cocks his arm and lets fly

too late-the train has passed-the target missed

inside the moment

Lawrence feels sharp pain to his forehead

"stress he mumbles"

ransacking his briefcase for Anacin

(he thinks to himself)

"there's no way Susan and the kids

will ever know what I go through

to bring home the bacon"



Henry laughs at Ricardo again

"you can't hit shit" he says

Tim is my friend

He's also a shade tree mechanic

makes his knuckles bleed

over the engine in my Oldsmobile

after a Transmission job

he turns to me in Lone Ranger fashion

says "TK-my work here is done"

there are loose bolts sitting in the trunk

I say "where do these go"

he's stoned-doesn't remember



I ran into this house painter once

in the Peppermill lounge-Cupertino

he walks into the place ready to fight

I suggest that he cool off

I buy him a beer

later he says "it's been one helluva week"

he had 3 doors to stain and finish

got down to the final lacquer coat

"screwed up all 3 of em'"

spent hours sanding out his mistakes



I'm like those guys

my stuff never has that "finished feel"

the poems continue to ache for perfection

long after I've sworn them off



one of my ex-wives

used to stand in front of the bathroom mirror

staring at her face

she'd get pissed and yell out at me

"bring me the yellow pages honey

I'm gonna' call someone

who can fix my nose"

reading back my own words

as they look on a computer screen

I can understand her pain



God help the folk-bard

who's work is never done

outside



back porch

I sip cheap red

strum a cracked and buzzing

Harmony 6-string

tell the stars

to go fuck themselves



upstairs



on your back

in bed

Cosmo opened

across your chest

you whisper

something to someone

on the phone



downstairs



in the kitchen

under the ironing board

our 3 year old sits

blissfully occupying himself

with a green, rubber,

T-Rex toy



welcome to plan b



much time ago

I was to be a writer

of words and music

you were going to travel the world

a single woman

scoring brown-skinned boys

taking in the sights

but like dirt-track figure 8ers

we "discovered" each other

an accident throbbing to happen

we became easy marks

lowest form of idiot



of course "little-man"

has no such regrets

no fear for what's future

he's like a sponge

soaking up the moment

laughing to himself

as he and imaginary friends

knowing the pass-word

slip past the angel

standing guard

at Eden's gate