Tuesday, March 3, 2015

Now-a-days LA and my DNA

Now-a-days LA

The life is different in SoCal 
I come
Every long once 
In a while
I always forget
But remember 
When I get here
How it feels
The light is
Suffused
Yet
More direct
Like desert air
Mixed with ocean 
And smog
Underneath you can feel
How gorgeous it's innocence 
Once was
When My great grandmother moved 
To SoCal Los Angeles
90 years ago,
Before my grandfather
Even knew my grandma,
When his hair was curly 
Chestnut
And his smile young 
As well as bright
He came here to
Los Angeles 
From Salt Lake City 
To try to make a go of
Living the Cali life
But missed
The place 
he'd only ever
Live his life long,
Moved back 
To salt lake-
Mormon land
After only 6 months 
And I am here now
A-days LA
Cause he went to a church 
ward dance
After finding the California life
Was not his
Life
And so in
Salt lake later
He saw my beautiful black haired
Grandmother 
When she was
16 years old and
He was 20
They danced
And danced
And married 
And danced 
And
My mother came
With her chestnut curls
Screaming 
And bewildered 
Into the world
And 
So I'm here


Sunday, November 23, 2014

The Autumn

The autumn
Wind and sky
Leaves dance
Autumn
Beauty
Lasting
For a
Precious
Moment
Birds chatter call
Water ripples 
Spilling the reflection
Gold
Green
Yellow
The foothills roll
In the distance 
And the air is sweet
With dusk
The dogs pant
Whine
It's time
To move on
And so we do
Flying
Into this memory
Crackling the pebble walk 
Beneath our feet.

Sunday, November 2, 2014

Our honored Dead

Dia de los muertos 
Our honored dead

Ancestors
Dead
Death another realm
Another place
Where flowers bloom
Fragrant everlasting 
And we, in this side,
Living
Smelling the flowers
Lost to us once they bloom;
Yet there
Another reaches us,
It's face
A glimpse
Delicate
Sweet
Caress
Of memory
That lives
Alongside
Our yearning,
Assuages the sharp breath
Of sunset 
The Stars 
appearing before us,
forever there, 
to behold.




Sunday, October 26, 2014

Our imagined presumption

Our imagined presumption 

The blister erupts
Boils scrum
What is this infection
We spew?
The obsolescence 
A manufactured
Distortion,
Would we
Grasp
This
In
The light of
Truth?
What is truth?
When the later day
Social constructs blind
Our insight
We will be once and
Forever
Bereft 
Grief strangled
Upon a shore
Of our own drowned 
Vision.

Wednesday, September 10, 2014

Stark grace

Beheaded by ISIS

Acting
In their so-called
Name of God
Militant hands 
Held up 
The chubby little body.

The child's arms
Hung like a dolls
In the hands of
The dark, bearded man
Eyes showing blankly
Horrific,
She wore a ruffled dress
White tights over shoeless 
Small feet
She must have been
4 years old or 3

I imagine she had curly
Black hair
And her smile brought
Delight to those who
Cherished her

The toll 
Wretched minds
Wreck upon the world

She who was justly
Innocent
Her ruffled dress in bright colors
Caught
In the park
Playground 
Playing
With dolls

What is this descent  
Beyond hell?
Wretched place
Of ice
Black
Dark
Extinct of Light's
Shine?
Love
Unknown
To these monstrous 
Men,
It's gleam 
Of feeling 
Extinguished
So profoundly 
In their fiery 
blank
Eyes,
Holding the little one's
Life
In their own
Lifeless hands?

Sorrow runs
Deep
Bottomless
From them--
they who
have nothing
To hold 
Except a 
Heart 
bearing starvation's scars.

While the little one's
radiance
Sings
An Innocence
Transcendence 
Of darkness and
Dying
In ruffled dress,
White stocking feet
Plump baby arms 
From just a doll's
body.


Saturday, August 2, 2014

Spring fever



Chicken love watermelon 

Spring and the flowers bloom
Oranges next to blossoms in the
Same tree

Early watermelon from Mexico
And the chickens love
The luscious sweet
But they don't like
Cantaloupe 
Soon the only thing left
Is watermelon juice stains
Beside drying pieces
Of cantaloupe 

Mint reaches towards sun
Open arms deep green
Mud is black and wet
Roses grandly flushed
Red leaves of the crabapple 
Tree catch and swirl 
In the wind
Dogs sleep and snore
Hummingbird clicks
A bee, then a wasp
Hover fly by
Wind chimes ring

And there I see the 
Hummingbird zoom zip
In the blue
Calling out

I am here
In this now

And me, I think,
On a day in spring 
I called in sick today
From work

Pizza pilgrims progress



A pizza Pilgrims progress 

Lo johns pizza 
Bleeker street
East village
New York City 
Holy shrine
Of pizza pies
From brick ovens shimmering
Crisp the sacred crust
Oh heaven on earth!

Is it the water?
Is it the tomatoey sweet sharp tang?
Cheese skimmed melty?
The seance in old long time
Greenwich village occupation?
The scratched scarred walls?
Generations of scrawled initials
Names dates years
Scratches on scratches
Story layers
Time travel
And time arrested
While all around Bleeker
The yogurt shops
And skinny model clothes shops
Shopping center for the few
Who can
Gucci
Gucci
Gucci
Jimmy Choo's
Live their priceless
Privilege

Lo
Johns
Pizza
Circ 1950s
I look up
At the neon sign
Glowing bright 
Look through the window
To outside
Through fluorescent 
Red letters
Caught suspect 
Spelling itself backwards
But shinning on.