All About The Blues

a walking dead looking
derivative foreign ex-
junkie rockstar whose
estimated worth is
about $250 million US
gave a talk yesterday
about his new memoir
Life at the New York
Public Library and the
general fucking public
had to pay to get in

Wasted

I'll punch out a beer can
pipe with this broken
pocket knife made in China
no carburetor but save
that little aluminum pop top
ring for some cripple who
needs a brand new wheel
chair and ain't that a fucking
head rush in this once
greatest country when I
can't hardly even walk myself

The Screenings

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pan-modal freedom.)




to name the symbol(s) they see,

AMERICANIST WITH 10 ITEMS OR LESS

WE'RE COMING, MOTHERFUCKERS.
read the words on his T-shirt

emblazoned across
a picture of the
Statue of Liberty
giving the finger

we stood in line
at Fred Meyer's

he stared in anger

"Who's coming, man..." I
asked half buzzed

"You know, fuck those
rag-heads..."

his eyes were fixed on
the invisible enemy

"I can dig it..." I
told him

he picked up his
plastic bags full
of various and sundry

I set down my two
twelve packs of HIGH LIFE

I was going to my
first time Bob Dylan
concert at the
Jackson County Expo

I had won the tickets
on the radio

it was now three
days into the bombing

the salesclerk wore
a little American flag
pinned to her blouse

"I hope he does
Blowin' In The Wind..."
I said softly

"Pardon me?" she said

"We're going to
win!" I laughed

"You're damned right
we are..." she looked
at me then slowly
counted my change

As The Googlebot Crawls Our Pages

fucking around online I looked
up this dude Clay Tober I used
to know through his brother
Gary who brought him around
here to the ranch a couple of
times years ago and this fucker
was an old school Nashville
recording artist a straight out
bad ass Son of Hank with the
records and songs to prove it
"My song 'Okies and Crime Don't
Pay' is burning up the charts in
Oklahoma!" and he'd come playing
his guitar singing his righteous shit
handing out 8x10's and his tapes
and concert posters and this one
time Gary was going to go back
and live with him but we were all
drinking and Gary was escalating
pretty good so Clay sent him on a
beer run and after he split he took
me aside and told me just tell him
I had to go I had to go and then he
left in his conversion van with the
Tennessee plates and now today I
learned he died around '06 and
that tore me up so I'm sitting here
listening to his The Gladiator Pit
with my all time favorite country
song on it A Wife Just Like Mine
remembering when Gary mainlined
some shit in front of the Mission in
Klamath Falls and died in about 10
minutes a few weeks after his old
lady got burned up in a trailer fire
on table land and I called Castle
Records in Nashville to leave Clay
Tober the message and I'm sure
they told him but it really don't
matter it don't really matter at all

Road Kill

there are no lyrics to a long dry
fucking slow blues at Griffith
Park in hot rain tongue burdened
by her mouthing sentences of
hair so implicit you'll write it all
down later after Jim Morrison
picks you up in his blue GTO with
ripe avacados on the dashboard
and Wild Man Fischer passed
out in the back seat under a copy
of the Freep heading to Wallach's
Music City to buy Charles Manson
a reverberating banjolele on a lark

NIGHT

for Mick

freeways of night;
soul voices, young
in rhythm/
in sense,

stolen from fools.

(this American night
captured in song
by black girls
in high heeled shoes)

or engines of night.

"I'll treat ya, baby."

or bus drivers of night,
drivers of night,
of night-

curbing & arteries
& cities & cars
& swollen night
enveloping homes
of the laughing
dead...

the radios of night
across America
signalling the
streets to
breathe!

neon of night &
silhouettes;
the inexplicable night,

the tears & joys
& night of nights,

of one cement ribbon
& a heart,

of eyes injected
with the ragged
horizon,

of the last
intelligible spoken
word!

There Are More Things

for Kevin Yuen Kit Lo

If he were alive,
John Lennon
would be 70-
years-old
today.

If I were dead,
I wouldn't be
writing this.

What $50.00 Will Get You In 2010

1.

We were sorry to hear that car trouble prevented

you from attending the Petaluma Poetry Walk.

I'm afraid that since you were unable to perform,

Poets & Writers will need the check for our portion

of your fee back. I wish we could pay you anyway,

since I know you incurred some expenses in trying

to get to the event, but unfortunately our program

can only support readings that take place.

When you get a chance, can you mail the check to

the address below?

2.

Since you already cashed the check, I won't pursue

the issue. If you receive a Poets & Writers grant in

the future, and I hope you do, please keep in mind

that it is contingent on your reading or performing.

BANQUET OF CONSEQUENCES

sober and defeated

"prior to his speaking"

Already Suffering

on our way down to Mexico
the dark ribbons strangled
all those poets who awaited
translation while I watched
her take a piss in some scrub
and thought put a cross here