Oh to write a novel!

so rare and so telling

Oh to look deep within

and find a story of old

Oh to see the words

forging heat in a breast

Oh to finish such

a task and lay down the pen

Oh to see the cover

on book stores front windows

Oh to see coffee shops

with readers spell bound

Oh to stand on the

stage to much applause

Oh to stand on the

ship’s bow sailing east

Oh to hear praise from

London and Paris

Oh to dream of

more and airy thoughts

But now the bus is

here and he boards

sleeping softly in a summer nap

he drifts and drifts….

 

I am currently working on a new book for next year and will only be posting on this blog on Monday, Wednesday and Friday. Thanks to all the readers especially those in India.

Back in sixty eight, Nixon got his turn at the war

Johnson had killed thousands but the rich men wanted more

but body bags started showing up on the news

mothers watched in horror and some got the blues

hippies in the streets along side the uncool squares

protest horns started volume as “hell no” began to blare

but the war machine kept going and does until today

what makes war so popular and so easy to make us sway?

it’s evil I tell you and nothing else can explain

why killing is the answer and melts the human brain

“thou shalt not kill” is no longer the preaching

as evil became the teaching

rudeness leads to violence and souls to destroy

and evil on the half shell is a devilish American joy

It’s a microwave world in TV dinner town

paper souls and styrofoam meltdown

C students at best and flat lined bald heads

the only pulses beat from the graveyard dead

sensitive classes and dog food kitchens

while yellow chickens are still bitching

gone are the psychedelics and the shoeless bums

everything is clean, sterile, men without thumbs

adrenaline is outlawed and so is fun

a thermostat turned off the sun

roads are safe again because they’re gone

risk is illegal and the dusk is dawn

everything is cool and banal is the way

language costs money if you need a say

big brother and little brother all the same

everyone is blind but lost their canes

 

High pitched junkie screams

coming from old ancient gravel pits—dead dreams

all from old rotten paper

evictions notices lay beside lease agreements

paycheck stubs rot together with termination notices

birth certificates swallowed by death forms

bank records by the million of bankrupt companies

old crossword puzzles solved

out of date phone books in stacks thirty feet high

acres of shredded documents whose secrets are safe

old love letters from ex-lovers who died young

mountains of last years’ newspapers loom darkly

silver cans filled with torn tickets and tokens

barns filled with old airline tickets that fall over

gutters clogged with little dance rave notices

japanese trash bins holding old chinese fortune cookie messages

election yard sign the day after still rooting for a failed candidate

where does it end?

 

 

He imaged it would turn out better

that she would change her mind

Along the way he was sure

but the papers were already signed

Three days of a two lane wasted

and gone down life’s ugly drain

Never saw such a long one

maybe just go insane

No plan B or what to do tomorrow

or the day after since he quit his job

Maybe stop and drink until

he found a bank to rob

Got to stop this crying and wishing

that this isn’t real

Hoping there’s a diner soon

and get a nice hot meal

Noticed the gage says the engine is running

a bit hotter than it should

No water around to speak of

Hoped this trip was a column for the good

Steam arising softly with a

greenish terrible smell

The caboose better be soon

and end this living hell

The engine boiled over as the train

rolled far out of sight

The wind was cold as he stuck out

his thumb in the long sorrowful night

 

Late in the decade, the nineteen forties coastline village

His fingers tired from the all night typewriter

Idolized Raymond Chandler and hard boiled stories

He toiled

He wrote

He let his mind wander into darkness

Morning with no sun, in need of black coffee and maybe some eggs

Threadbare raincoat moved along the stone path from the tiny cottage

Fog everywhere

Fog horns

Ships unseen

Bell rang as door opened

Empty stool at the chrome counter and a fresh news paper waited

She filled the cup with out talk,  and shoved a greasy menu

“Whadya havin?

“Java”

“OK”

Fedora stayed on as others ate without curiosity

Day after day night after night he toiled

At night the cafe was a beer joint

with onion rings and dancing to the juke box

At a lonely stool one night just around midnight

An ex-sailor came in drunk already and talked about

a body

out in the water

dead

cops with flashlights all over the beach

He ran down there to see the story

the drama

the tragedy

a murder

a murderer was on the loose

in fear in the tiny cottage

he toiled

his typewriter ablaze now

The cops never found the murderer

But he discovered a story

that lives on to this very day and hour

 

It was a while back when I walked down the well lit aisles of Trader Joes

a beautiful display of fruit along with a handwritten sign in colored pencils

that got me to thinking about things, I don’t know why

but when I was a child and my grandmother stayed bent over

for hours weeding in her garden on cool Texas spring mornings

the smell of the earth, so pungent and powerful, so real

that smell…the memories it birthed

I drove by there not long ago…real slow and surreal

the lot was overgrown with weeds and assorted unnamed greenery

the earth was still there and had been laden with wooden forms

for a new foundation to be poured later

But the memories remain deeply embedded in my brain

Changing oil in the ditch…not caring where the oil went

it’s probably still there

High School days took over the folds in my brain

adulthood and beyond

What day is it now?

Oh yeah

Shopping for fruit…I remember