StarPoet Newsletter Vol. XII, No. V

The storm blew in,
Black leaves against white sky,
Frantic birds sail past at double speed,
Trees bend dramatically but do not break.
Minute by minute, the temperature drops,
Clouds pirouette slowly counter-clockwise,
A freight train passes in the not too distance
As I listen from the cellar, sipping wine,
Eating warm pita and hummus.

The summer that we toured
The bars and coffeehouses of Sacramento,
That last long free summer
Between our junior and senior years,
The weather was quite warm
But then it always is,
The central valley had global warning
Decades before the scientists did.
We amused ourselves with margaritas
And glasses of cold Olympia beer,
Sometimes taking our tequila straight
After licking salt from the back of our hand
And sucking on a slice of fresh lime:
We were the pinnacle of cool.  Visiting a friend,
We might be offered varieties of marijuana,
Which, of course, we would politely refuse
Except those nights when we chose not to:
We were all, after all, so hip
We could have been in San Francisco,
Listening to Quicksilver and Moby Grape
While discussing whether Janis
Was already in her descent.

Wyatt worked his mission,
Succeeding where others failed,
Backed by his friend Doc Holliday,
A man of questionable distinction;
Together they busted the syndicate,
Aided by the brothers and good men,
But Wyatt's the one given credit,
Burying their secrets
In the grave beside him.

I'm hip deep in muddy waters,
A sixties coffee house
Striving for authenticity
Beneath the cigarette smoke
And poorly strained leaf tea;
Bessie Smith, Billie Holiday,
Robert Johnson at the crossroads,
Smokestack lightning,
Boom boom boom boom,

I've had two trains running
For as long as I can remember,
One following the Mississippi
Up to some Chicago blues joint,
The other running down the valley,
San Francisco to L. A.
-- If you've got the fixings,
I've got the stuff,
Let's rock and roll like Grandma did
When Elvis still sang his heart out,
We don't need no American idol
To tell us what is good.

Let me tell you about a boy I knew,
He could rock and roll all night,
Gave me good one cool afternoon
As we watched the fog roll in
Through the Gate across the bay,
A little red rooster on the prowl
Who could really make me cry,
Bye bye, baby, baby bye bye,
It's crying time all over again.

There are faces in the hallways
Of people decades dead,
Co-workers and acquaintences,
Old friends and relatives,
Spectres haunting my memories
Of if, and could, and didn't,
Ghosts of childhood gatherings,
Classmates lost in space and war.

Seven billion bodies,
A handful of variations,
Twenty thousand individuals,
Five thousand daily visitors,
More than enough probability
Of stirring banshees and daemons,
Sending them through the corridors
In search of vulnerable opportunities.

There, the woman who mentored me
Back in the mid-70s, hasn't aged a year,
Over at the table, drinking latte,
The friend who was lost in Desert Storm;
When did Lonnie get back from Nam?
How did Suzi survive nine eleven?
I went down river once when I was a kid,
I am not a murderer though my enemies died.

A part of me is afraid of what I remember,
The last breath blown in my face,
The bullshit piles up so fast you need
To sprout wings to fly above it;
Family is a series of digital photos
Uploaded on a seldon visited Facebook wall;
What's done is done, blood will have blood,
Accurst be the eyes that see these dusty shadows.

In my earbuds, Phil Ochs still exists
Singing about Miranda and the pleasures of the harbor,
A bipolar left social democrat prone to alcoholism
And really quite good at making a hangman's noose;
Thirty years and more have slipped quietly away
Since he exited our stage in Far Rockaway, New York,
Little remembered outside a small circle of friends
And gray haired anti-war revolutionaries.

A more perfect union,
Justice, tranquility,
The common defence,
The blessings of liberty,
We, The People, do order.

The unanimous consent,
Done in convention,
One thousand seven hundred
And eighty seven,
George Washington presiding.

Religion, speech, and press,
Assembly and petition,
The right to bear arms,
Search warrants & probable cause,
Due process, self incrimination,
A fair and public trial by jury,
Rights not identified
Are retained by the people,
Not the government.

Dead on arrival,
Titles of nobility,
Preservation of slavery;
A work in progress,
Life, liberty and Happiness.

Well show me the way
To the next liberal cause,
Oh don't ask why,
Oh don't ask why;

For if they don't find
Their next liberal cause,
I tell you they must die,
I tell you they must die;

Oh moon over Chicago,
They must now all say goodbye,
They've lost their shiny prophet
And now must have a new cause,
Oh you know why.

I annoint myself with poetry,
Dripping metaphor and allusion
From pore and pen;

Here is my tabernacle and baptismal fount,
Here I give them hallowed things
Sprinkled with my poet's blood;

I would speak more but my tongue grows silent,
A cunning weaver of fantasies and fables,
Even as I claim my immortality.

Stuck in a tunnel,
The train out of service,
The morning starts quite well;
At work the door quickly opens
Almost hitting me in the face,
The day is following a path
Of irritating resistence;
I fully expect a hot latte
Will leap from my hands
Onto my new blouse,
Perhaps my period will
Come at last after decades
Of not going red.