richard, the old school

in the days before cellphones and pda's
there was peace spoken on bumper stickers and love in the streets where the fault line used to be drawn between us in chalk.
a shady white line that stood on the border of hell and the divine rainbow light flashing off the coast like a lighthouse beckoning ships at sea.
cosmic interference plucking the mid west out of the man and transplanting bits and pieces of identity into the nonlinear fabric of san francisco on wheels,
radiating lights and colors in between playing the horn and weekends with friends slash artists going places in life.
programs and books, art gatherings and happenings, columnists, websites, concerts and biographies.
orchestral melodies and frothy liquid harmonies,
painted art and progressive magazines.
all about aces up sleeves, who you know, where you go,
a rolodex database and an espresso.

lovechild

there it is again, a palpitation in my heart. i believe it will kill me one day. here we are still. "i'll never accept this." always second place. football plays and bar ways. answer the tele in the phonebooth across the way. granada and malibu. freedom fractured in two. smelling you and remembering the lovechild never meant to be.

writer's den

i have nothing to say now, after writing two poems in my head
only to have them disappear instead into the foggy muir woods bay, floating away as i spoke their words into the windy sounds of seaside.
i think they were both about you, but i can't be sure,
five bottles later life's muddled blur has got me spinning around drawing up perspectives high off the ground, tripping off cliffs without stir or echo.
we shaved heads today, under the sun and mist of misunderstanding,
where skin was shed and life remade into a montage of cliched themes gone blissfully unsaid.
we forgot the salmon, but brought the corn,
not hearing each other before the storm, draining what's left of happy into the puddles of sad,
the shoreline seemed peaceful as crashing waves stirred emotions to powerful to brace.
bodies broken and hearts red with life, you are as beautiful to me now as the day we played in the sun on angel island.
life's p.s. ever clear and loud, following in the steps of the proudest of proud writers.