For Jon Schill

He was looking down at the freshly cleared Brunswick pool table. Practically alone in this little corner of the world, he and his beaten opponent filled the tiny lounge.
"Another game?" As the clack of balls on the table echoed down the concrete halls.
"I don't think so, I've already beaten you twice. Let's not make this embarrassing" He turned his head to glamorous faces splayed knee high across a table. Smiling. The clack of balls rolled down the hallway.

Three Untitled Short Pieces Written After Reading Yeats for an Evening

I heard the woman softly say
'I've watched each day
As my love was flown away
On the tip of this Bluebird's wing'

. The lonely song this songbird sings
. Rings in my ears;
. Like mine, its love is gone. Pity it
. Can't share my tears

.. The crystal crisp morning dew reminds my of the scent that you
.. Wore dancing in the garden that long distant night in June.

The Streets of San Jose

The streets of San Jose are paved with broken concrete
that juts out at your toes until you learn to watch where you step.
The cobbled stone turns from gray to dirty brick red and back
as different materials come down from historic buildings
falling in disrepair or replaced by modern international giants;
McDonalds, Taco Bells, Pizza Huts, even Kentucky Fried Chickens.

The streets of San Jose are covered in greasy fried chickens
with a side of salisbury steak and heavily MSGed barbecue sauce.
More cheap than the bounty of vegetables growing in the countryside,
on every corner the fatty factory protein is available
for only $2.50, some self respect and a lifetime of high cholesterol.
You can watch the grease slide from mouth to exposed flabby skin.

The streets of San Jose are drowning in obese, flabby skin
rolling from the sides of densely packed pedestrians.
Plunging over tight waistlines and bursting out of single stitched seams.
Enormous spongy buttocks swallow small stools and two toothed women
are orbited by tiny tables with confusing lottery tickets, "29 Chances!"
or hawking backdated Chinese crap fresh from the warehouse.

The streets of San Jose are pock-marked with cheap Chinese crap
that must arrive at the dock to a line of barkers, waiting
to fill their black plastic bags with the same shit they will sell
on every street, in every corner, at any price, to anyone with money.
Remote controls, power cords, textiled bags, plastic toys from dime store machines.
All laid out side to side on industrial garbage bags like well organized trash.

The streets of San Jose are littered with unorganized trash
that has already been picked through, shat on, slept with and discarded
by the numerous wandering vagrants that sleep in the most visible areas.
Preferably on sidewalks and under business awnings of major streets
where more tourists will disgustingly throw colones on the ground
to keep the clever hands from finding their way into clean pockets.

The streets of San Jose are filled with clever hands and bold thieves
who will kill you in broad daylight for just a few dollars.
Leaving you to bleed out on the gray concrete cobblestone,
staining it a dirty red just blocks from your hostel and the police
who will let your body lay uncovered in the sun while inspecting the scene
before bagging you and taking you off the unwashed streets of San Jose.

But...the streets, well, the streets of San Jose are full of first impressions,
scary stories, rumors, bad advice, worse directions and loud voices.
At night the corners are gathering places for prostitutes and monsters.
There is violence. There is poverty. There is greed. There is cocaine.
There are corners in which light has never shined.
Disappearances unexplained, creating and destroying a sea of life.

The streets of San Jose are flowing with life, washing over the cement,
lapping against the stucco and brick buildings, filling your ears
with language, your eyes with color, your nose with scent; tantalizing,
enticing, full of promise, energy, vibrance. All of it random, unexpected.
Here the blind lead the blind. The old man's hand on the young man's
shoulder, canes oscilatting, wading out into the waters unafraid.

Is this a Poem?

a piece is a poem because a poet prepares it as such

for me a poem is a present, a plaything,
a passion piquing picture parceled out in pieces
and each presence a person presents in a poem is important
but each placed in mind or mouthed isn't meaningful mind you
and matters the less for it
though it mustn't need muster meaning
and might mean mostly nothing...
yet a good one
a good one
without a lot of alliteration,
rhythm, rhyme, reason or realization
might move you to mourning
or until morning... to mourning until morning?
well...this morning i was mourning the maddening loss
of a good pair of shoes, scratching my hair, sipping booze
sitting sadly starring,
very badly drawing
faces in the fog on the glass
wondering when my headache would pass
so i could think without pain
and i was racking my brain
though the pain would not tame
through the thought that then came
... i'd be forever the same
now that would be lame
but then the whiskey kicked in
and my sorrows were smoothed out
as i thought to myself
a person cant possibly live without change
i am a new person each morning i wake
yesterday i was a young man who could drink any amount of whisky
today i am an old man drinking too much whisky
and someday i will be a boy again
who never touched whisky in his life
wait wait wait....
why do all my poems wind towards whisky sorrows?
fuck it

My Scarf

My words can say just some, and not the whole,

for though you'll listen closely, I still fear

my words will speak my mind and not my soul

and how then could you ever see things clearly?

I'll try to tell you my dear, my heart.

I'll let loose words of life, and love, and loss.

So when it's time for two like us to part,

these words will keep my heart from getting lost.

Please, when you go, remember what I say

and wrap this 'round your hair, near your ears.

I hope my words will bring you back someday.

This cloth can help to wipe away the tears.

Though it seems you wear it all the while--

Those words are lost; the scarf just fits your style.

15 Years at Cafe *****

Yellow school ship

passes the window

distant conversations

over modern pop

music... a Taste--

Earth... from Indonesia

burnt to just past its peak

firm seat on a tan stage

a Headache--

three chairs pushed

away from a small round table

yarn--

a pretty girl doing homework

wearing a lip ring!

shades of brown swirls

on my cup

More headache--

old people on new comp-

"...my dad was high..."

the air smells clean

--I don't feel clean

the table doesn't either

"I [something something] probation!"

that's a lot of stuff

for one person to carry

new art up
green and yellow walls

back "the Star motel"

it doesn't look like a nice place--

Clean rooms, HBO, Low prices

--off axis views

15 Years at *****

doesn't seem like I've been here that long

--Still have a headache

Voyeuristic Reminiscence

I prefer to watch happiness through a glass window.

Physically seeing the barrier between us and placing my hands

on the smooth, cold surface--crystal hardness pressing back;

gentle light coolly shining through, illuminating my face.

On the other side of that window is dancing smiling celebration--

jubilation for a union, a birth, life and loving in the same snapping

dance steps and parachuting skirts of spinning young fairies,

their delicate wings appearing and disappearing in the glittering light.

The wine is poured freely on the other side of this window.

Red cheeked men are patting shoulders and poking ribs with pudgy
elbows and sweaty palms. Bellies jiggling every which way.

Wide creases pushing back thick, shaking jowls.

Pearly white lilies match perfectly the smiling teeth

of a pair of elegant women in golden embroidered dresses.

A red stain forgotten on a pluming dancers skirt--

wispy brown hairs decidedly no longer out of place.

Hidden under a table, a young boy in a handed down suit

is red faced and sweating after his first kiss was laid on his cheek

by a little girl in ruby red shoes who still dances on her fathers toes.

A peck I could still feel burning on my face after so many years.

There were purple flowers

There were purple flowers

growing all along the bank of the river

as I floated with the swift moving current

I dream't slow motion dreams

of putting purple flowers in your hair

adding them to The Dream--

a dream of dreams atop dreams

continuing, growing, changing

but there are always purple flowers

growing along the banks of this river

the kind we used to keep in the kitchen

in springtime, when everything was growing