For Padre, if he chooses to read it

A son to poor school teachers
bluegrass on a ledge slapping
his knee, a son with mud caked
on his legs, a son pickled bright
laryngitis, on a sunrise Washington
State rose from its evergreen stoop
birdcalls chanting distress signals

"We'll all float on alright"

us writers thinking like we've
somehow atoned for our sins, somehow
the sanctity of the age, future'd-hands,
do bliss hereby sing this point forward
in Autotune.

But the wrens still wrench me from
my sit, and it's all different how we
got to intersections in our lives. let
them in shouts the longhair in my head
screams balconies
family college kids, the warmth only
ice and dew and it's June and the days
are long. Glory to thy name, thy will
be done.

Lies, Believing in them

Visions of the evergreen speak clarity
to you, the sun pouring over Seattle
cement like honey, the I-5 congestion, toxic like
fire eating cardboard, mice hide in your walls and as
you speak they climb

out of your eyes.

Meanwhile my radio dial is transfixed like Sauron
on pop-music misery, tobacco stains on these turn-hugging fingers,
the Patriarch smiles from his landfill Sinai, acting like
a fool I do for you.

And when we're alone the
angels weep all sentimental,
the demons they jump
from their bar-stools, winged
piglets around us are silly games,
our souls in the shuffle only a game
too.

So then, reader, I have a question.
What do we do with Indian Elephants
stuck in our parlor rooms, too small to
eradicate, yet too large to let be?

"Partners in Crime" take note.

It's easier to imagine
the end of the world
than the end

of capitalism.
But it's not impossible
to imagine a new
world in place
of capital-- a world
run on soul and not
on bank accounts.

The Pope who used to ride subways,
me drinking a can of Dr. Thunder and
wondering

why that's a big deal.

After all, in a perfect world, we could
ALL have a chance to become
important to the grand scheme of
things.

Hell, maybe we are.
Maybe you have more of an impact
on the people around you than
the Pope.

Or maybe that's a good way to
challenge yourself.

Maybe you're bigger than you think.

The world opens like a flower
if you yourself become a flower,
change imminent and incan-
descent and if you refuse like
a rock in the riverbed then you
stay a rock.

Being a rock has perks but damn
it's just not for me. I'd rather
float down the cascading river
and follow it down to the sea.

After all, we're all being swept
away into the sea anyway, no
matter if we're rocks or flowers
or anything in-between.

Believe. It's way more fun than
to doubt.

why be a bud when
 ya can be a flower

Morning Koan

Chem trails, jet engines,
dystopic fields
of Kafka.

Dream-forests,  B-cup
breasts and erect nipples,
golden hour.

The Mystery, the
mystery, marking
my schizophrenic

steps, onwards, upwards,
wayward, two words--
The Mystery.

If you're gonna buy something, buy
me breakfast. You don't need to buy
freedom, not when you can work for
it.

12:07pm on a Tuesday,
an ambulance drove by
and dogs went crazy,
barking, howling, carrying on,
there must be a reason
why there's so many dogs

in this neighborhood as well
as all over town, some kind of
pattern or some kind of sound,
this breathing in, out, we're all
machines encrypted and encoded
to eat eat eat, I'll say it again
'cus this shit's important--
we're all machines encrypted
to eat, eat, eat.

 You're just growing up. That's all
this is-- just growing up.

But it feels like so much more, this life,
your life, so self-involved,
always feeling like you've just been robbed
of time, place, dedication, and effort
when it's you who stole, bitched, borrowed, and pilfered,
but don't you see? Yeah ya do, there's more to this
than just me and you.

There's more to this than just me and you.

All ya gotta do is inhale, take it in,
feel the voices screaming in your head
LEMME OUT LEMME OUT I'LL YOU ALIVE,
nuh-uh soldier, not this time.
Hold it there, let it release, feel the demons cease
to live, feel 'em die, feel 'em trip and in their
absence, sans relapses, feel the electricity in your synapses.
But remember through it all,
observe observe but don't forget to  stand tall,
and above all else, however ya do, know that there's more to this
than just me and you.

MAN, FUCK YOU, ALL YOU EVER DO IS BITCH AND MOAN,
like you need some therapist to call on the telephone
crying screaming all schizophrenic, cutting yourself,
might need a medic, check's bounced, bad credit,
yeah, that's right, I said it, but please, allow me
to elect the Master Effect, the one to keep you erect
when there's no room for malignant intent.
They call it meditation and when ya do it there's mild elation,
a cooling sensation, it's time for encapsulation. Don't you feel?
Yeah, ya do, there's more to this just me and you.

There's more this than just me and you.

SCENE.

FRIAR and magician PROSPERO sing in BASS PLAYER'S  living room.

FRIAR: Winter’s here, let’s forget

The integrity of our moral set.

Let’s grow so that we may reach

Your sands, this immortal beach.

PROSPERO: And now my charms are all o'erthrown
And what strength I have's mine own
Which is most faint; now t'is true
I must here be released by you

BASS PLAYER: Winter’s here, let’s forget

The integrity of our moral set.

I’m just here for a pack of smokes,

Us, the cancer, Earth wants rewrote.

PROSPERO: Which was to please. Now I want
Spirits to enforce, art to enchant
And my ending most surely is despair,
Unless I be relieved, re-loved by prayer

FRIAR: Winter’s here, let’s forget

The integrity of our moral set.

Let us remember instead his claim,

'The Lord, The Lord, Love is Our name.'

PROSPERO: Prayer pierces so that it assaults
Mercy itself and frees all faults
As you from your crimes would pardon'd be
Let your mercy set me free.

BASS PLAYER: Winter’s here, let’s forget

The integrity of our moral set.

Let us fuck in the name of love,

Let us live before we die young.

The fire, the fire

You bring out the yellow in me,

the bonafide cyborg,

the child,

the one kickass is

One is you is are.

You bring out lobsters

to the table, butter is me,

you bring out the big toe,

The incidence, circumstance,

the fire. The fire. 

I stand among the brush staring at the sky, listening to mirror-clear water dribble down from a desert spring, looking at the mountain, strips of sandstone and red rocks powdered with trees and dust. The mountain taunt me, saying "you'll never be as wise as me, I've been sitting here for thousands of years, I watched you people build your town and pollute your air but it doesn't matter to me, you'll be gone long before I am," whereas the brush says, "grow, grow, grow," the creek water says, "renew yourself!" and the animals hidden in their burrows say nothing, they can't talk, and the sky big blue beautiful whines, "I'm hungry let me just eat you up, my mouth is big enough for all your worlds to fit in sixty times over," and here I sit on this rock painting eyeballs and trees wondering what's it like to be a mountain, and an old tree a mile a way calls out, "heeey Austin or Boston or whoever you are or wherever you're from, come pick my berries and be a child and live like everything is new," and the rocks in the creekbed scream out, "You call yourself balanced but you can't be so small yet as large as we are," and the mountain says, "they have a point, kid," and the bushes around me keep chanting "grow grow grow" and the sky, having already eaten us, contently whispers, "you're still here, see?" And all the while I'm standing barefoot in the creekbed, seeing my hand four inches down in the pool, clear and pure and full of energy, energy that makes me feel oh so alone.

"Move move move," says the wind. I see my hand four inches down in the pool and forget my past, the only thing that ever mattered is right now, a newborn peaking through past the uterus into the world, and I poked through, if only for a moment, to see beyond this earth, this rock, and the wind says, "move move move," and I shiver 'cus it's cold outside. Then the mountain says, "You'll see. Or you might never see."

I take that comment and throw it back. "You've always seen, Mountain! How can you know what it's like not to see?! How can you know what it's like to doubt it all? To not believe in it?" to which the Mountain big heavy brown says "Childe, I've been around much longer than you think."

Viscerotonia

Here here, drink to the gut,
let's stick to it and
live by it, at least, until
we decide that our guts
have shit for brains.

Think and grow rich or maybe just crazy,
Trust gut, hit the jackpot or maybe just hit crazy,
Use muscle, be a winner, or maybe just be crazy.

Cerebrotonia.
Viscerotonia.
Somatotonia.

Me? I gotta be 4, 5, 2.
(It has to equal twelve.)
Now you. What's your score?
Self-evaluate.

Hold your ass cus here goes the cold water

Genie's out of the bottle, let's go full throttle,
arrive where the voices rock us all
to the core, voices left and right comin'
up out of the shore to tell us which
way to go-- "this way" , "that way" ,
"this world is yours"--

Bullshit princess. You ain't got keys
to this magic sheet called reality.
What you got instead is the brain in
your head, feet on the floor, echo off
the walls screaming "I want more" --
yeah, well, me too princess. We can't all be
heroes or zeroes or emperor nero's, some
of us gotta clean the shit up or eat it up,
twist it up in some other lie other than
the one we're living, your skin's a myth.

So here we are in this cave eating a bit of lunch,
this cave full of voices, to them I say "enough,"
but they don't stop, this cave full of fear,
instead they give me some advice about my career.
"Hold your nose, hold your ass, hold your eyes, hold your tongue,
hold your girl, hold your wife, hold your child, hold your son,
and when you done holding, let that shit go,
fall to the floor, never pick it up-- don't look at it again.
At least, until the rent is due.


Shoo-wee, precaution tumbles
out of the faucet and reminds us
all what it means to live in the moment.
Present is the past is the future is now.

The written word identity
you cling to as it sinks
into the riverbed.

Let us become the river-
bed.

Let us be still among
all this movement.

Be still.
Resist
movement.

The Forgotten Ballad of Phu Dee

NARRATOR- bathrobe burnout, see BIG LEBOWSKI
WALTER- PTSD 'Nam viet maniac, see BIG LEBOWSKI
SUPER- superintendent
PHU DEE- fat writer muthafucka

STAGE.
We begin at an apartment. Salty, empty Little Caesar's boxes, garbage, etc.
PHU DEE is dead, staring up, tongue hanging out of his mouth.
NARRATOR and SUPER look at him.

SUPER: I'm sorry. He's dead.

STAGE.
NARRATOR is on telephone with WALTER.
NARRATOR: Phu Dee, man.
WALTER: That sucks. I'm sorry to hear that, Dude.
NARRATOR: Yeah, no you're not, Walter. Can you at least drive me somewhere scenic. Red Rock. I got his ashes here and I wanna spread them.
WALTER: Dude, I can't.
NARRATOR: Why not, Walter.
WALTER: It's the Sabbath. I'm not even supposed to be on the phone!
NARRATOR: Oh, fuck you, Walter! The Sabbath? You're not even Jewish!
WALTER: Dude, why you gotta disrespect me here? I'm not even supposed to be on the phone unless it's an emergency.
NARRATOR: Goddammit, Walter. It's Phu Dee. (pause.) Look, the man upstairs, God of the Israelites, fucking YHWH, He would understand. Funeral rites, they need to be respected.
WALTER, after a pause: Let me consult my rabbi. Hold--
NARRATOR: Walter!
WALTER: Alright! Alright! I was just playing. Be there in twenty.
NARRATOR: Yeah, fuck you Walter.

STAGE:
NARRATOR climbs into WALTER'S "truck" (or seats or whatever) carrying a Folgers can.
NARRATOR: Walter, dude, put that out.
WALTER: Where's the urn, Dude?
NARRATOR: Put that out, Walter, for God's sake!
WALTER: How dare you take the Lord's name--
NARRATOR: Walter, this (he holds out coffee can) is the urn.
WALTER (laughing): No, that's not the urn, Dude. Where's the urn?
NARRATOR: Walter, I couldn't afford the urn. And will you please put that out. We're trying to be respectful here.
WALTER: Whatever you say, Dude, it's not like this is my fucking car that you're in ON THE LORD'S DAY OF REST!
NARRATOR: Walter, please calm down.
WALTER: Seriously though, Dude? You think Red Rock is the best place to spread his ashes? Why not in front of a Burger King?
NARRATOR: You think Phu Dee would enjoy that, Walter?
WALTER: I think he'd love it.
NARRATOR: One problem, Walter. We'd be spreading someone's remains in front of a restaurant. Where people eat, Walter.”

WALTER: I don't care! People are pigs anyway, fuckin' swine.
NARRATOR: We'd get put in jail for that Walter. Besides, Phu Dee.
WALTER: Phu Dee was a morbidly obese Filipino warthog, Dude. You know it, I know--
NARRATOR: Ok that's enough, Walter. I'm getting out.
WALTER: Wait, what? Dude!
NARRATOR: Fuck you, Walter.

WALTER: Dude, I didn't mean it. Let's go to Red Rock like the plan.
NARRATOR: Like the fucking plan?
WALTER: Like the fucking plan.
NARRATOR: You're the worst fucking friend Walter.

STAGE:
WALTER, NARRATOR, Folger's can, on a "cliff."
WALTER (licking his fingers): The wind's blowing that way, Dude.
Narrator dumps ashes.
WALTER: Fuck, Dude, let's go get some food.
NARRATOR: Walter, give me a minute.
WALTER: OK, Dude, well I'm gonna take a piss.
NARRATOR: That's nice, asshole.
Beat. Another beat. NARRATOR starts to sob. He puts his hands in his pockets and feels something that wasn't there before. A note.
NARRATOR: "And now I see learning like heavy clouds wide spread above you, rich with the promise of life-giving water, their deep shadows foretelling imminent rain and your hopes high for it. Seek, then, the rain which is in these clouds and wait patiently to see where it will fall. And make your plea to God who brings on the rain, who spreads wide the clouds, who removes famine, who gives freedom to the bound.“And know that God gives life to the dead desert places by a drop of her merciful rain which he causes to fall upon them. Seek out these places which require and receive the life-giving rain and you, too, will be well watered. For surely the first light showers from these clouds will cure your ills and the steady rain which follows will wash away from your innermost being the leaning towards the things of this world. When this rain pours on your body it will wash away from you all your spiritual afflictions and when you taste it its exquisite flavor will kill all passion within your soul.” WALTER (coming in to hear part of it--): Phu Dee was a writer, Dude. You knew that.
NARRATOR: I didn't know he was religious. We failed him, Walter.
WALTER: Dude, you didn't fail him.

NARRATOR: Thank you, Walter.

For sado-masochistic
tendencies, please press
one. For problems with
your mother, please press
two. If you have suicidal
thoughts or imaginary
friends, please press three.
If all of the above, please
hang up now and find
a guru.

If you cannot find a guru,
write a book. If you are
mentally unable to do
this task which is on
your bucket list, make
a sandwich. If you cannot
afford a sandwich,

find a man who will
do all of these things
for you. Or a woman.
If you're disatisfied with
your personal life
and want to meet new
people, feel free to start
a religion.

Call it Vicodinism,
after your most beloved
hobby. If you're there,
please press five. I
know I am.