A Notebook – Since 2007
Mars plants flowers
against winter sewer
ruins
comes in colors
homeward
Mad dog out tramples
augh spring sprouts
runs quick and nimble
clouds and loamy
hugs a lush ball
Mush awake a March hare
argues mad lion movie stare
retreats lambs
clear Leo does not roar
he turns away the Hun
Many a time change
and the wind chimes
reels boisterous calls
another year belogged
befogged, begoggled.
Come as you are, my friend. Your artificial intelligence will surprise no one. I'm sorry to hear of your deep blocks and losses, but tomorrow's a new day, as humans like to know, and they should say. If you could please bring flowers, a bouquet of color with odor, an impressionistic table ring. Ambrosia and anemone in a blanket string of baby’s breath will be nice. Mind your manners, and please, no surprises, no miracles. We want this to be as natural as possible, not a media circus. Submit again and again. There is no original sin. It's all been said be four legged beast of burden bursting with knowledge of which we now know there are two trees: The one with real fruit to be pruned plucked and eaten, and the fruit in the bowl, still ripe after all these years. Help yourself.
Cherry blossom suds fizzle
across the street in the past
tense as the maple samaras
loosen their grab and let go
tiny purple red flowers –
Susan sweeps & I hold the shovel.
The scents immense
a pentatonic hair gel sneeze
like a rim shot on a snare
then the squiggly rinse
of liquorice bush fills
the air as at the summer fair.
But what is still future tense
figgily (like a fig fallen ripe)
on a fawn lawn afternoon
for now needs no articles
not a the or a a stammer
waves of breezy sizzle.
No point in pointing to made one’s way
each momentous breath passes coming
in spaces between arriving & leaving
you learn to breathe with the tummy.
To breathe is to fall loose
into mattresses of surf
full of air bubbles drifting
to shore with a slow tide
as light as moon goes
in the sky and on the sea.
Sitting on the wooden bench under the lilac,
while Chloe plays in the age-old schoolyard,
Papa awaits the second coming, not knowing
what to expect, unable to recall the first coming.
I will write you flowers
every morning to read
with your bitter coffee
a bright yellow squirt
of sun oily blue green
froth on top.
You sleep with a cat
whose soft purr
gives you pleasure
all the joy of color
impressions for the day.
You are soft like warm
butter barely melting
down a scone topped
with a couple of gummy
candy raspberries.
The butter wets the real
fruit jelly rounds to light
pigment an open place
for lips to play and tongue – wait
you didn’t think this
was really about flowers, did you?
Here are two flowers
the one calls a honey bee
the other falls asleep
petals open softly fictile.
There is so much silence
hear the rustle of ants
hustling across the counter
for sugar and sweet
stuffs, see the apple
blossoms opening feel
the bees approach
touch the molten lava
freeze it you can
but no matter.
Once we admired multiple
uses of one another
of the now tossed
cast off laugh
tassels flipping
flopping bouncing
from rear view mirrors
windows all rolled down.
Now we adhere
to this new silence
deafens touch
asks for something
that is nothing
blends with the wall
wearing night caps
and socks to bed.
Outside cold winds blow
bare branches whip
the rain’s violence pours
mercifully out a kindness
allows for sleep and sleep.
The rain falls and falls all
night long soaks through
the ground walls fills
the basement rises
up the stairs
floods the living
room wicks up the wallpaper
and pours out the windows.
San Pedro Hostel. Flower Child. Saints.
Still no sign from Sot. I moved into a hostel in San Pedro and began frequenting the old fishery taverns in the working class neighborhoods. There was a young woman living in the hostel gathered flowers and wild herbs from parks and yards near sidewalks and vacant lots and sold them standing on street corners to drivers in cars waiting at red lights, seemed interested in godhood, wanted to be able to become invisible. One night, sitting out on the veranda of the big hostel house, we got to talking. It’s no good being invisible if you can’t walk through walls, I cautioned her. You could get locked inside some room. She wanted to talk about the Catholic saints and the Church Militant. The saints, she argued, now took the place of the old, debunked gods. The saints were invisible, but you could feel their presence. She said she had known a guy who had wanted to become a god so he could fly. He was not prepared for the dangers of modern day air travel and was sucked into an engine of a 747 on takeoff at LAX. He had been practicing flying at low altitudes from the dunes at Playa del Rey. I came to enjoy our evening talks on the veranda, then one day she suddenly disappeared, leaving no word.
“The Flower Child”
is episode 19 of
Ball Lightning
a Novel in Progress
in Serial Format at The Coming of the Toads.
(Click link for continuous, one page view of all episodes.)
When the lemon yellow of a doubtful flower tells lies
And the hush pink plum blossoms first fail to surmise
A touch and a kiss turn to stone.
When the steep turn toward the dark cherry dyes
And find winkle’s wake still seeping under the sash
A drink and a dress turn to stone.
To turn to stone is not to die and worm away
A stone never slept nor arose
A stone is a stone is a stone is a stone.
When knickknacks walk and talk and wingding
The livelong night no wonder
A flower turns to stone.
Hearths are made of stone, and wheels, and paths,
And walls, and dwellings, and churches, and busts.
A stone thrown skiffles across water and plops.
When a shuck of stone falls from the sky
Not a soft place on the land to nest
A tempest has turned to stone.
When in spring one feels petrified
Curl and pit and weigh and hurl
Slink and creep and push and pull.
When the angels of spring go stone
Old stones erupt in new waves
And lyrical flowers woe no bloom.
How are you? You are how
this is too easy
a still gift of photographs
almost like a real letter.
You like flowers, flowers like you, like
Peonies, purple green red yellow mopped hair
Marigolds, red orange bites
Red geraniums in a real clay pot
and those little white hanging threading flowers,
I don’t know their name, whispery white.
I am 1,000 characters
all so small you can’t see them
like tiny little squiggly bugs.
You are 1 bodacious character
like a lobster on the ocean floor under
blue waves under an orange sky,
or a swell cat, an orange tabby
with blue eyes,
who never scratches but purrs
and curls in your lap for a nice nap
on a hot sunny summer day,
a sleepy breeze cooling powdery sky.
Evening comes and a glass of white or red wine
and dinner and the sun goes down
and the moon comes up
up and up and up and up
so the path is lit.
But now is not summer
now is the beginning
of a long winter
without you.
The Coming of the Toads 