Riverside and Then Some

Time was, told me a woman at the laundromat, artists and jazz musicians could afford living in Riverside, by Harlem...

("Perfection," gold leaf on sanded birch board, 2019)

(Donations help me breathe and sundry...)

The Cell

arms up
hands clasped behind her head

she affects nonchalance

yet squirms...

-- thinned out,
as though flattened
under a plate
on a glass slide.

These are not tears
(Saline agar)

Suspend
phage Doubt --
bacterium of fear.

***

So when we meet the Beast
We shall met him with dignity, with grace --
With voices upraised in song.

(for Ms. Sandra Bland in Heaven)

Eschaton

Slack skin and arthritic hands.
These are the raddled lands

where at the dusk of time
an old man lies,

his head to the wall,
his feet to the door.

I will rest here forever more,
facing the dusty window sill

and the yellow lights outside
running a bent line up the hill until

I find a way to survive.
There is a silence to tell.

Summer, Alive

A jack rabbit, startled,
flies at the barbed-wire fence,

over the dense weeds,
towards the sun, which is rising in the East.

A boar picks acorns
one hundred yards away.

A gray cat stalks by,
feral and stray.

Stonyford 2015

Coyote yelp:
a throat-caught call
from hills
half a mile East.

Man as beast:
pelts clipped to a wire.
Water and ash
in a barrel four feet deep.

Soap hung on a fence
keeps the sheep safe.
Cows low, upset --
they are separated from their calves.  Seek

not so much to be understood
as to understand.
Here is a sandstone mortar and pestle
used to grind acorns in the past.

Fling

Daisies in May
faces bob and sway.

Yellow, white:
he loves me,

he loves me not.
Kiss the spot

under your chin,
then run away.

Controlled Burn

Prescribed by the forestry,
hundreds of square acres
smolder.

__________The smoke
rises and drifts to the South.
Sweat on his brow,

a man bows to the ditch
before him.
_____Flames, orange and wild,

lick the brush.
__________He feels a rush
of blood to his head.

His partner stares,
inferno-led,
_____fixed on a dead

squirrel not five yards
away.
_____The men stay

at a temporary camp.
Tonight they will rest,
but for now the sun

sparks in the sky,
_____a white-hot
__________arc lamp.

Black scraps run up --
_____ashes of burnt prayers --
__________to heaven.

Lavender, Rosemary, et Alia (a Garden Poem)

Abutting the kitchen
_____a witch's dream

Thyme and parsley

_____Carnations, red
smell of spiced cream

Snip
_____Fold
__________Clean rag

Gold saffron alone

grows elsewhere.  Seed

Dill in a windless
_____corner

Chives pay their rent every day:
faithful boarders

Cilantro for salsa --
delicioso

_____Garlic also
summons bees

__________Rosemary
(memory's friend)

_____remind us this year
what sprouts again

Commute

Yawning beyond into haze,
the bay from I-80 seems
littered with islands.

The water is still.

We filled the tank
at Dunnigan.  Past the windmills
near Vallejo

light streams in

blinding the driver and me.
Hills, green, roll by.
We cut off a a red Corvette

driven by some heavyset guy --

his car has tail fins
and a popped trunk.
By the time the sun has sunk

before us, to the West

we are approaching
the exit.  It took an hour.
Our best time yet.

Walking Along La Playa

Crows standing in a line.
Moss on the North side --
the monkey puzzle tree breathes

a sigh of relief.  They seem
further away than they are.
Each among the murder

ducks his head in turn.
One flaps his wings, caws
and is gone in the time

it takes to hum two bars from a pop song.
Another alights on the bare branch
of a bent and otherwise lush jade plant.

Omen of Life

Chaparral-adorned hills recline like an odalisque.
The horizon rises three
fingers to the sky.

Hot, dry sandstone keeps its own
counsel as the interrogatory
sun beats it.  One

vulture interlopes.  Descry
what you like or hope
from its flapping, black shape --

the bird's lack of company
signals that it meets another's fate
far, far away.

Indian Valley, March 11th

Golden poppies unlock.
__________Sunrise
livestock --
_____Heresford --
graze along a violet and green
_____hillside;

they move seldom.

Scattered rain clouds above
__________tell lies:
Outline
_____simple truth
until the sky purples to mean
_____twilight.

Poppies twist closed.

Ladoga

Black walnut trees overhang the creek.
The nearest bank is choked with blackberry

bushes.  To seek and to hide,
that one might arrive

dry just by threading between raindrops --
my Thermopylae

is the gravel crunch underfoot.
Soot from a brush fire on a lone, weathered boot.

Bear Valley

Larkspur, violets, and golden poppies
litter a field that runs up
to mountains.

A drowsy bumblebee
weaves around me.
I stand facing East,

my hand shielding my eyes
from the morning sun.
There is no wind --

unusual for the month of March.
My shadow starts
behind my heels.

Halo

Winter-stunned,
the blind sun
encircled by ice;

it shines not to see
but to be seen
by rogue and saint alike.

Each damp face
upturned and served
with warmth, every one.

Lett's Lake

The water has a mirror finish;
it reflects dark green pines.

So many times we walked around
looking for the best spot for rainbow trout.

A silver-hulled boat glides by;
the man in it rows with a silent nod.

Pass

High fog hides Goat Mountain's peak
and casts a glow the color of rotting pearls
to blacken a row of digger pines, transforming them
from twisted sentinels on guard in a line
to a great beast's bottom teeth
fresh with arterial blood.
Selves we made who saved lives
quail at the roar of wind we remember from before.
All is quiet here except in our minds.

Old Colusa

Over the green levee to the bench -- it's missing a plank, 
as well as an inscription thanking some lance corporal for his death
in some rock farm thousands of miles East.

The bench is simple and was once red; from it we can watch
the Sacramento glide by: a shattered, nickel-hued mirror -- clear
on this December day overhung with mottled gray.

Make a silent wish as we tip our beer to men we held dear.
We'll kiss each other before it's too late
under trees bare of leaves, by water swift as fate.

La Resistencia

"Tu puño es rosa,
pero está en la muñeca izquierda."

So averred Placa
as we screamed around the fountain

surmounted by Our Lady of Death.
I tossed a nickel in

from the scrub side of her ride --
a fucking e-Golf, homes!

So this is the town of Juarez,
where my sister and I

dream into being an army
of girls; they throng the street,

each bearing an obsidian blade.
Los caballeros bar the doors and draw the shades.

Indian Knife

Obsidian blade,
sinew, and antler:

a knife made
by a Wintu-Yuki

sits on the shelf.
Letters above spell

the family name.
This winter's rain

drove the deer
into your barn,

you complain.
They raided the place,

spreading straw
across the dirt lane

that winds up to your
dilapidated kitchen door.