Mars Tomorrow

No way to know, just playful imagination.
What will happen when
we reach Mars tomorrow?

So many years searching, looking, guessing.
People trying to reach, dying while reaching--
all to explore more of Heaven.

Such an intense, sprawling secret. Guesses at best.
(I think there are little green critters up there.
Or maybe an Olive Garden.)

Whether we see markets or stars,
a biting, empty echo...

It's the metaphor of what's in store.
For us all.
A future, poetic or puddled.

Deepest Portrait of the Universe

we were glass aching to shatter.

we were stupid with love and pain.
and it was beautiful.

juicy. meaty. berries and cinnamon good.

our eyes like centuries.

we would throw words together
and they would work:

bicycle. tanzanite. the Deepest portrait of the universe.

all this rain takes me back to that summer
for i've nothing to do but get drenched.

Roswell in the Spring

All this tan and sand is alien to me.
Where I was seemed so much greener,
mountains were cleaner. Lovers were, too.
This spring is not the season I expected.

I know that summers flow
and other colors come...
No one could make it through that fall,
that winter together.

A new compass. New tires.
Money for a piece of diner pie
in every county I cross.

This is what a road
is for, I suppose. For going.
Not knowing where you're going.

A search for another new somewhere.
Fresh. A sweet medicine.
Somewhere, I hope, with a shower.

What to Tell Your Daughter

Lie to her and say
that you did not eat
the last cookie.

It's much safer than
admitting you did.

Yes, to lie is a crime,
most of the time
but hell hath no fury
like a cookie-less kid.

Time to Make the Donuts

Whoever claims
there’s no biz like dough biz
never had to be here
at zero in the morning.
They’ve not blasted down damp streets,
the traffic lights their only company.
Never glazed and filled,
shaped and spilled,
all dry-mouthed and hungover.

You can only sweeten so much bread
until it soaks into your head
that there must
be something more…

Not more dessert stuffs
but more that we must imagine
and dream
and scrape after. Our lives. More.

Like walking on the moon.
(Or at least faking that you walked on the moon.)
Like little family with little babies.
Finishing that book.
Seeing a real otter. Something.

Something that sux you in like fireworks,
an incredible vacuum…

I put out my cigarette in the batter and smile.
Just to myself.
“Must be more to life than friction and strife.”

God may be in the machine but He is not in the Cruller.

Manolete y Islero

There's a slight stain on the carpet--
faded and well-walked over.
From what I can't remember.
That will be you.

All these stuffs I can't taste,
words I won't pronounce.
All of it on you, too.

Anything I can blame you for.
I will.
Hangovers... Asteroids...
Driving downhill into a
thick film of unforgiving smog...
That bull charging at me...

Whatever I can. Wherever I am.
I only used to be proud.

Bed Wetter

total control
means you learn to let go
all yellowed sheets
in the world be damned

tonight, this night,
awash with soap & bleached bright
i am no less of a man

World Piece

Doctors and Ditch-Diggers,
Drivers & Teachers,
Everyone wants to write in Big Sur.

Black Politicians,
White Rodeo Clowns,
Brown-ish Botonists...
No one wants to smell like a sweaty sock.

So much of us is the same.

No matter our ways or daze or country or craze.
We love laughing. And dessert. And puppies.
(who couldn't love a puppy?)
The common wants of sweetness and security.

We all hate flat tires and hate traffic.
(who doesn't hate traffic?)
We all wished we looked better naked.

So much of us is the same.

Peace.

All of us began as universal winds kicked off,
whirlled around causing cosmic dust to clump up
and plump into a pretty little planet.
Science or Divine or bearing both in mind
that is just about how it happened.

All of everything. All of us. Peace.

Old friends, new friends, sisters & brothers, cousins,
zoo keepers, literary agents (and other animals), band members, gauchos...
Togerther... Stretching out... Let's pledge...

Don't blow me up. I won't blow you up.

Understand that we won't always understand
but it's wonderful to wonder...

We may fight & struggle & tug
but after let's always sit down on the rug
or a big comfy couch and joyfully
share our stories and wine...

Please. Peace.