poems - Walking the Dog in a Time of Rage
Walking the Dog in a Time of Rage
the minivan screams by horn blaring angry
fist out the window I must have done
something wrong
rage has become our discourse our answer
anger our voice sputtering away in the
ether on the highways in the ballot box
we’re driving through a park not a very big
one only one entrance one parking lot
we’re both approaching I wonder if he’s
going to the farmer’s market too
my friends online-nip at each other
clever quips bite
I pass his vehicle drive to the other side of
the parking lot as far away as possible
this anger swirls inside
we don’t know what to do
a white man in his 40s gets out of the van
sets his dachshund down pulls a baseball
bat from the back seat looks at me
Marsha and I go look for brussel sprouts but
part of me wants to stay I’m angry too walk
over to him isn’t that how it’s supposed to
be celebrate this rage consecrate it with
our blood on the ground flowing
we find yellow squash instead on the other
side of the park there’s the man his dachshund
his baseball bat
The Satyr Sleeps in Light Raining
- Perseid meteor showers
He drives Old Woman Springs Road
looking for a place free of man’s light
once the satyr floated on his back
in a Palm Springs pool
Perseid rained light in water
salt buoyant like
a dream it quiets him
he remembers Perseus from back
then the man was angry violent
the satyr was probably drunk
that was millennia ago
they changed they grew up
he’s taking time off work driving
the Mojave Lucerne Valley Landers
a dirt road aims right out past it all
he parks carries an old canvas
camp chair six pack of beer
climbs a small rise sets camp
thinks about humans growing up
he is supine canvas stretches
and he encounters star dust burning
occasional coyotes howl
and of course gun shots
always gun shots
Mothra and the Luminous Twins (before the movies)
The twins told her stories when she was
larvae stories of earth and all who reside
here Mothra mostly ate ready for change
The twins sang dreams to her in
pupa/cocoon premonition
vibrated through the hardened shell
Hiroshima Nagasaki Bikini flashed
through Mothra’s psalm-fortified-cocoon
radiation immersed the naked pupa
she emerged imago an adult enraged in pain
Mothra arose through searing light
her vision in pupa
expanding
white blinds me snow falls
all around cinder dust grit
its burn peels my skin
Dreamtime and the 101
Let’s take a trip down Whittier Boulevard
- Thee Midnighters
just past the 405 going south
a neo dharma bum stickered
hybrid SUV passes us
last night I dreamt of Rick
in the upstairs room on the left
a hidden room always there
passing Vivid the Ford Theater
I saw the Pogues there
graffiti crosses knocked down road signs
in the dream, Rick is leaving
I gather up what is needed
our paths are so close
brothers
we cross into Hollywood
the Knickerbocker the Beatle’s capitol
more crosses the Shangri Lodge Destiny Inn
the crush of downtown
we are on parallel paths
like moving sidewalks drawn close
we touch then drift a part
Gronk and Spring Street
J-Town Aztlán
Brew 102 and beautiful bridges
Rick, Rampart and Tommy’s
I wave
the car hurtles down past
the 605 South Whittier and on
Rick is absorbed and distant
he waves back
goodbye