David L White .org

In late summer 1974 I had $300 set aside. There was a Les Paul Custom guitar, white with gold hardware, in the North Sioux City Pawn Shop. I never even strapped it on. I can imagine drooling.

Or ... or ... I could take the money and buy a thousand 64 pp self-cover, newsprint rags set in my hand with Speedball pen and India ink.

My graphologist's nightmare ...

there is no door

includes alphabet soup

1974 - $1.

This file also includes the pieces in

Songs for Tentative Guitar, Ice Cream Koans,

Panboy, Gone Fishin', and some previously unpublished works.

This could be considered the prequel to my 2014 Lost and Found, a 40th Anniversary Anthology.

The pictures of the guitar were lifted from:

https://www.gbase.com/gear/gibson-les-paul-custom-1974-white-3

Note: I do not know what I meant by 'there is no door'.

Perhaps ...

Yeah. No.

Here we go.

.....

To Linda Coming Back

She took me deep

Playing ode to joy

Trembling fingers impaired

By the quantity of escape

She consumed the nights before.

What is there left to say

when you’ve lost deaths together

And the clichés passed so quickly?

For it seems sometimes as if

I don’t know them now or ever did,

those I loosely call friends.

And I asked her, did we ever

know each other? She whispered yes,

over coffee once and quietly.

…

Ah butterfly

Lives that touch are all too short,

music songs and bottles of wine,

and seasons tides meander on,

with hope to make it wide

Ah butterfly, aren't we travelers

of minds and roads which makes

us then just souvenirs, blown far

and wide by pleasures, tormented

by our fears?

Ah butterfly, we have been conceived

in time, in essences of brevity, make

each moment count for all. for peace

and strength and memories

Ah butterfly, if I have not touched you yet,

though I don’t hold much with fate,

that we were meant more not to be,

unless we meet again someday.

…

I have not written of love

it’s been some time and

sounding strange are varied

lines and so many worn out words

misused, born of nostalgia and s

o are fused to stare at me

so innocent, so foolishly assuming

that I wonder what I meant.

…

A golden thread of nameless faces

weave an aimless river

Through mirror lakes and whirlpools

the answers are delivered

…

Sometimes I am Not Enough

I live in circles

and climb my inside walls.

And sometimes I peer

into emptiness, the other part

of a couple, hoping to find that

one and one make three

or even two. And sometimes

I feel meant for mostly alone. I

couldn’t survive the children’s games.

For I see all around me so many who

spout love with words and don’t

even know how to speak or listen.

I would have one at least at a time

closer than most, close enough to

keep me from freezing to death.

…

The overused words

are thorns to my feet

and sorrows to my heart.

In the space our eyes

meet and fill, I

see reflections of

something deeper

than so shallow, something

as deep as silence.

And only silence will echo

what needs to be heard.

…

Long Distance is the Next Best Phone

I had so much to say

and forgot it when you said hello,

and so much more to live

went dying out the door.

It’s hard to bear the silent home

long distance is the next best phone

Closer than when we sign off

this poor connection party line

and leave it to the party

I’ll right when I have time.

It’s hard to bear the cold alone

long distance is the next best phone.

Shallowness will disappear

in retrieving all the miles

only to lay them down again

over a long, long distance wires.

…

Words of a Various Mouth

Thinking

is embracing a thought

Inspiration

a thought embracing

Words for various mouth

heard by a various ear,

subject: interlacing.

…

Connie Own

What seem to be

the New World greeting

a hug and a kiss

and my heart was bleating.

Contradicting though

as she spoke never I,

heard all that was said

and she meant goodbye.

I won’t hold it against

California though

for what Connie‘s

is Connie’s, is Connie’s alone

and I can’t have what

Connie’s own.

…

Gypsy Melody

Inquired of my whereabouts

I replied that I had none

till I dance that day with gypsies

oh God it’s so much fun

A thousand gypsy dancers

serenading bells and eyes

loving, trading constantly,

a thousand gypsy smiles

In late and crimson afternoons

the zealots died too young,

then came out celebrating

beneath midnight sun

I danced that day with gypsies

oh God, it’s so much fun.

…

Maybe a little

Color blind

but you love

I would change

the world to love

I know no reason

love those little

alas, maybe a little

is all there is

Maybe a little

is all there is

…

From the Projectionists Booth

And so I breathe

in the projectionist's booth

and so they shit

on the projectionist's truth

and so they plant fear

in the moist fertile youth

and so suffocate…

Who was it stole into the

projectionist's booth

who was it that squatted

over the truth? Who was the

gardener that fooled the youth?

Perhaps, just me,

in a cynical mood.

…

If I wasn’t going anywhere

or feeling that I had to be

I might get into coffee

and my brother or painting

the house, side by his side

not to paint, but to be part

And if I had a lot of time

the dog and I might go

for one of those long

philosophical walks

I’d only loved to plan

and now regret

Yes if I wasn’t going anywhere

or feeling that I had to be

I might take a long long time.

…

Coming Down the Lane; lyrics for Vicki

Through the party curtain

past the bridal wreath

outside the house

that first moment

I knew it was you

and I couldn’t move

and I hold myself to blame

and what if I had met you

coming down the lane

There is a little comfort in saying

that this is how it’s supposed to be

the what if's crop to haunt me

and even here is not the same

and what if I had met you

coming down the lane?

Coming Down the Lane; lyrics for Vicki

…

First Chant of Darkness and Light

It has been night

for much too long a time.

It has been night.

It’s gotten darker and darker,

for much too long time.

It has been night.

It’s gotten colder and colder

for much too long a time.

It has been night.

And now it is, finally dawning,

dawning on me.

…

Soliloquy in Autumn; a touch of gold

Various excursions in the autumn glow

have brought not harvest, but seedtime.

I’ve left more than many blank pages begging.

Seasons, not bound to spaces of time,

or any other predictability. So…

thirst when the well is dry.

I seem to bind my trials in a bag of dreams

and imagine a following after that, but that

is just a touch of gold, a glittering thread

of reason to hold it all in place

Transparent ideals and training wheels

I need them, too. Too late the chair was

kicked from under me and all my philosophies

have pretzeled themselves ... they are too salty now.

I’m tired of trying to make connections between

realities and draw the line of fantasy. What makes

a difference where I live? Be careful …

you’re standing on a chair.

A friend said it was worth living for these days,

all days. Yes, but now why? I stole the

golden ingot of reason … then … lost it in the night

How is it the greatness passed so quietly and

barely noticed through what deep gorge or

unmarked freeway in the sky?

Life, it is you I have called. A disappointed

fool stands in the echo for you are not the

far off glow. Today, unbidden and unwanted

come flurries of memories and aspirations. I

know you faceless bastards of come only to

haunt and mock as desire, the hungry devil,

sets upon my flesh, only to belch and grin

when I have rested free.

III

With you, without you, I am called.

All the voices have had their say.

Silent partners now in this business

of life. I must go alone.

Life? I thought you’d come as a

magical winged God, but you are

as weak as I.

IV Fini

…

Sad Dog in my Eyes

Your 5 x 7 lies in the top drawer

fading into yellow. I don’t go

that way no more.

All the sad dog in my eyes

I can’t get used to night.

all the sad dog in my eyes.

Oh for the love of a woman

nights would find me at home.

Oh for the nights of a woman

love with find me at home.

All the sad dog in my eyes

I can’t get used to night with

all the sad dog in my eyes.

…

It crushes me

to see you take

my magical 'it'

all in your hand

and say, so what?

...

I take what light

is burning in me

and burning in me

to shine when I can

and you don’t need

to see. And that

wastes me.

…

You came in to me

excited and alive

peeking out from

a November cap

and collar

Smiles and scarlet cheeks

starburst your jubilance

against my dark gray sky

With thoughts in other moments

your so brown eyes touched

as deep and true as the chill

that rushed in the door

telling me you were gone again.

For Julie

…

Slower for me (the morning)

staggering in broken

pieces of light till the

assembled torch bearers

are amassed in the

multitudes needed to

see past my nose.

Mornings have come

slower for me.

…

Along splash of cool

Years of heated third-degree

gearing down the brash and

throaty engine

momentum

riding

gliding

into

…

Shaking Leaf (13 short pieces)

The wind, deep whistling

it’s night train east, through

treetop pass the sun trod west

...

Take your drink hot or cold or body warm

and run it over tongues and taste and

aftertaste bittersweet and each

…

Lurking through the darkened eve

the foggy lakeside, shadowy trees

like some wrought iron frame,

dark ivy on a crystal ball

And weeps the eternal willow

for diffusing stairways of colored light

If I could walk them on the silent water…

...

Neither wanting nor having to be here

just being here being just here being here being

…

And we love in the pungent dark,

to the melody of silences

crescendoing into murmurings,

whisperings of love till fresh light

…

Oh to the sun, through my morning window,

fills my room, heart and soul, and wakes me,

blossoming

…

Your perfume is daintily yet

and found nowhere but

in my smelling. I have looked.

From our embrace I am taken by

as easy arms of hope and knowing

that you may be as gifted as I with you.

…

We’ve languished

in the garden pool

much again too long

white water striding

drowning eyes

head up now

one last rush

before the falls

...

What good will it ever be for me to be running

wild naked free in some moonlit ecstasy spree ...

what good will it ever be for me to leave the ones

I love ... caught and hanging from the tree ...

what good will it ever be for me?

…

Postcards and letter telegrams

therein I sent you who I am

that’s only where I just once was

and Lord that ain't enough

...

Sorrowed children stolen wings

must learn to fly without such things

...

Walking slow for kicking stones

and knowing, simply knowing

…

Shaking leaf

in sea breezes

I in your arms

it comes to be as sand

on those ocean floors

…

Closing Hymn

The sun crept slowly,

silent, and still warm,

grief sighed and sucked

my insides out

The sun, now hastening,

wind rush follow,

swirling hollow over the

verdant belly of the earth

…

The pounding surf of wanting you

smashing down the few light musics

that ask me away, the ceaseless melting

flame foundation and every breath

draws farther away

I have followed your barely audible tones

through numbing eyes and ears to my

very heart beat, that pounding surf of

wanting you too much, and it has mattered

wanting you too much.

…

Melting dribbles down candle side

touches my center a waxy plaque of chord

resounding one candle warmth

within my chest in tones and drones

and ocher voice to mellow lemon song

…

Some fear has risen

from the murky depths

casting shadows on my light

and trembles the cup

to pleading lips

left shivering in need

of some everlasting fix

And drowsy do I say

to cobweb tangled arms

to mumble incoherencies

in embryonic sleep

and he would bury me,

the eye, who shelters him.

…

Pale Shades

Free blown by any wind

picking whatever merry way

my tunes their pale shades

but yet and blinding bright

to see between the shadows

of the pebbles and the other

sometimes mountains

…

As night rolls back to the valley

that sunrise smile

breaks slow

like the brown earth warming

across your eyes

and we may touch

though earths away

your sun is my quarter moon rising

…

Meetings / And

We parted then, no sorrow

arms reached out

and trailed off

in farewell's frantic grasp.

A gentle step said "let us go".

and fingers locked and tingled

We parted yes, and you left right.

I could not vary/blink

to chance and mist a memory

and if you turned your pretty head

I’ll always wonder like to know

even though I now know better

…

If you love me, too

I love you, that sweet nectar lust

but share it where it sparingly

on rarely afternoons,

or it will turn to vinegar

and pucker burn my nose

and it will turn to liniment

and Epson salts and alcohol a

nd I’ll be hooked on love,

that crutch of love,

until I’m crying corners

whenever I can,

whimpering 'love' while I cannot breathe

I love you but please let me go.

I love you. I hate you. I hate you. I hate you.

I love you and now I know.

So share it where it sparingly

on rarely afternoons, that is,

if you love me too

…

Sang some low and mourning river poem

Shenandoah I love your daughter

and oh you damn and rolling river, I’ll find who

I thought you were, where my heart was lost

in skipping stones on the whisper song surrender

and on the wind carried me to the shore where I was not

…

The Many Still Wind

The Crier, bearing his crying, no longer crying, but being the cry. And the wind took up this cry and thrashed and about until it was no more. The cry being the silent voice of the Many Still Wind

The laugher, bearing his laughing, no longer laughing, but being the laugh. And the wind took up this laughing and thrashed it about till it was no more. The laugh being the silent voice of the Many Still Wind.

And by and by, after all this thrashing, came upon the hearer of the Many Still Wind and was caught up in the cry and laugh and was thrashed about until he was no more. The hearer being the silent voice of the Many Still Wind.

…

No Longer River

No Longer River but hush and a gurgle

and Watching the river and being the thirst

that even the river couldn’t quench

On the wind of his wanting sent an exchange

"M cup, sir, of emptiness," to No Longer River

But No Longer River would but hush and a gurgle

and send not other back on the wind.

So the wind returned a Cup of Wanting

full now with Wanting Not Wanting and said

"Sir, your cup is filled."

So Cup of Wanting was no longer wanting and

No Longer River was No Longer River as it danced

in the cup ... a hush and a gurgle.

…

Lyric

oh my lady

my sweet lady

my sweet sweet lady

Guitar wind,

front porch swinging,

broke my heart crying,

I thought I’d heard

all the songs,

but this one, s

o sad

Oh my lady

my sweet lady

my sweet sweet lady

(written to music)

…

From the unfinished ...

alphabet soup

Building monuments to monuments

to monuments and putting up my

three ring tent I tight-roped Webster’s

iced kaleidoscope, that kite string,

through strata ephemeral. My equilibrium

must be out to lunch side, say I, falling

flat on my tongue. Mostly now I just giggle

and blow the breakfast cereal's plastic whistle

(tweet tweet) while alphabet soup drips from my chin

But this will never do .. not when I need

to touch you across this communion rail

and need to be touched by you and walk

with you and listen to your fluid eyes

and make love with you

and make love with you.

…

We dragged out all the old tapes and sat crosslegged and laughed and marveled at the gods and the caretakers of the soul sanctum‘s of music were naked primeval ghost meld in evening supplication.

We would verily flow of our boy-ish whirlings into the pulsing orgasmic, rhythms of heady freedom off in the next whenever

Blues shadow ivories by chamber candlelight and waiting and waiting and being released, he to his sunrising orange flicker glow and me to my writing you this poem

…

In cosmic broken weeping

they caught young Aesop there

and strung him headless from his clouds

with paranoias bloodshot orbs

they tied him to the mountain top

and burned fables at his feet.

zapped from smoking poetry

they were unwittingly apropos

and buried what was left

right next to Mother Goose.

Cradled in your wordless

knowing I would take

young Aesop‘s place and

make my broken noises

with my half educated throat

(soon hopefully I’ll be completely

unlearned) meanwhile I’ll bathe

your translucent mooning face

and hope they don’t hear me

making animal cries

behind my paper wall.

…

Them (of me)

Call your dogs my lady

send the children away

for I am going home

nowhere yonder over there

where last I saw the sun

haloed 'neath the rainbow sky

past my eyes / frozen / looking there,

past my skeleton fingers reaching there,

past where the jackals carry my dead flesh,

past where the worms leave them (of me).

in the dust I will be home leave us alone.

…

Janus-faced

in my lotus floating

my one eye ever seeking

that euphoric holding stone

and my other one eye

tearing letters to the

windswept distances

between us and my

poor bastard, last one eye

beholds my spinning head

…

The silence

definitely scrolled

of Birdsong

deafened even

by my want to hear

(the scrolls will be)

as prison bars

when my hearing

seeks the silence

…

Reached a plateau

or other new low

and backwards looking

other it was, upon it the

bottomless box I tried

to fill saying here, look

at what I’ve done.

…

Going nowhere(s)

I am (if I am)

and/but if I am

going somewhere(s)

in particular

then let it only

these there(s)

some other where(s)

no else.

…

Throatings of ecstasy

darting / hesitant explore

yes we touch again

the tear I am yielding both

to sorrow and joy and laughter

and weeping

The two pains

in each our breast

arise at once and

the two healings with them

you and I, you and I,

in the bundle of a flash,

yes we touch again

a whisper glow of lived in souls

timeless during none between

yet we touch. I sit alone

and wait until eyes.

...

To a cappella wherever she may be

...

there is no song called

Coconut Wine

Image of hand drawn music staff x'd out.

Chorus:

Oh mama

Drank too much

Wine tonight

And cried all night

Coconut tears

…

The last letter in alphabet soup

All what I hear

is words, words, words,

slobbering off

your spoon shaped tongue

So what

you can spell your name?

All what I see is noodles

…

Green Stamp Blues

I went to singin down the alley

stumbling on my worn out shoes

'don’t you join no rally', rallyin'

with my own blues

I went singing down the river

I need an oar for my canoe

I’ll pay the freight if you deliver

trade you my green stand blues

When I get down to the Delta

I’m gonna send you a picture postcard

there ain’t much I can tell you

but them good old blues done me no harm

...

12 Bar in E

...

…

Jason your son, oh mother Medea,

waterway of his sailing ship,

pathless journey weaving the cloak

of Golden fleece

Jason your son,, oh mother Medea,

suffer him not his sailing ship

…

Molly by the Sea

I’d like to sit someday by the sea

near a little place for Molly and me

but Molly her name don’t need to be

as long as she likes to sit by the sea.

…

Some there are princes

and some there are frogs

yet to be a prince is to sit

on a log is to know you’re

not far from being a frog.

…

There is no door

There ain’t no door

that you can open

like a cheap whore

there ain’t no light

that wouldn’t make shadows

on the floor. there ain’t no light

there ain’t no shadows anymore

Blah blah blah

there ain’t no door

and I can’t say it anymore

and I can’t say it anymore.

….

The reading of this book into the text took 50 minutes. 50 minutes and 48 years.

When I first started reading it I thought I was going to do linebreaks and commas in parentheses and stuff and while I did catch a few typos as they went by I just read it straight. I will add line breaks on the laptop.

There is no door - 1974

and 49 minutes

…

Songs for Tentative Guitar

Pilot Press 1980 Austin Texas

A single, French fold, legal sheet.

AZML

...

Dripping Springs

I spent last night in Drippin'

with another man’s woman

we slept in separate bedrooms

he stayed in New York City

I spent last night in Drippin'

south of Ausin 30 miles and

you know how the truth hurts

when you get it caught in lies

We hung out talking dirty

country western sings the blues,

drinking beer and wild turkey,

shooting dollars worth of pool

She introduced me to the kitty,

the riot shotgun and the dogs.

We smoked a couple bowls,

watced TV, like falling off a log.

I spent last night in Drippin'

with another man’s woman

we slept in separate bedrooms

he stayed in New York City

He called her late that evening

to ask her where she’s been.

She said out Christmas shopping

and hung up the phone then.

I spent last night and dripping

south of Austin 30 miles and

you know how the truth hurts

when you get caught in lies.

…

Dear Lisa

I wish out of known you

before you got married,

got older and Harry,

and Harry got gray,

because the song in my heart

is a hard one to carry. I guess

I’ll just sing it away.

Don’t take this poem home

to Harry, dear Harry, it’s no

laughing matter he’ll throw it

away and the song in my heart

is too big to bury. I guess

I’ll just sing it away.

…

Maria

Double barrel shotgun blues

Pancho Ganzillas kid sister

Maria is waiting for you down

by the river. Pancho's kid sister,

Maria, she loves you, is waiting

for you down by the river

Pancho can see you and smell you

and taste you. Pancho's shotgun,

the barrel is blue. Pancho can

hear you and hear you and hear you

and follows you quickly down by the river

Pancho can touch you, almost can touch you,

and Pancho he takes shotgun aim.

You and Maria down by the river and

Pancho's kid sister takes half of the blame

and Pancho's kids sister takes half of the blame

…

Hancolite (tm) Blues

Got me a mean old case

of the Hancolite blues

got blue plate edge and

fast drying on my shoes

got cobalt dryer from here to there

I got offset powder in my nose and my hair

got me a mean old case or the Hancolite blues

Walk out on my knees

on a Friday afternoon feeling

like a half tone of an old blues moon

got me a mean OK so that Hancolite blues

Take my Friday paycheck to the local tavern

get me up set me up with a hanger light

and I say with a grin got me a mean old case

…

Cold Spring

a lyric with missing chords

There’s no one waiting in Wisconsin

with their arms flying wide.

The winters aren’t bad and Austin

but I got Cold Spring on my mind

There are winters here in Austin

you don’t need to own a shovel

and no work days you stay home

from on account of the weather

and you wonder why I complain

well it just ain’t Cold Spring in the rain

I had a crazy painter lover

from New Orleans Houston Denver

city daughter of a doctor

we got nowhere real soon

She hasn’t asked that

we stay friends yet now

that lovers over it’s OK

I’ve been busy in a

Cold Spring memory

She spent some time

at the University

and heard it all but

the Coldspring Melody

Northern high school buddy

climbs at salesman‘s ladder

his wife makes good lasagna

they came here for the weather

next year their daughter will

be three with a British Texas

accent and a Coldspring memory

Just an hour from Milwaukee

80 miles from Chicago are the

tourist Vista Lagos that I call home

and when I think of Coldspring

don’t even ask me why I get those

tiny Coldspring teardrops in my eye

So I guess I’ll go to Coldspring

and buy myself a shovel and

teach their children Sunday school

and forget about I am. I guess I’ll go

to Cold Spring, where there are no

cops or stop signs, with the weekly

farmer socials at the local tavareen.

I can almost feel the breeze

and I’ll be writing

central Texas memories.

….

Gone Fishin (notes)

One sheet, hand written

1979 Austin TX

When sometimes like now I’m getting busy or involved in or out of doors, I hang this sign on my off-the-hook telephone that reverberates: gone fishing. Gone fishing.

Hell is freezing over, the cows are coming home, walking right across it, on the other shoe that dropped. Famous authors are dead and living in New York, the marriage of Art and Life is getting a divorce, and while the end of the world is coming and going, I am gone fishin'.

Been fishin' a long while, from the long drawn out tales of Cave dwellers, the scrolling of low too, and Gutenberg‘s wildest dreams, through the declarations of interdependence, decreed on bazaar walls of Chairman Mao, the great American flyer, a ghost is fading fast.

I noticed live poems dying

when I say let me write that down.

They go down sounding better than

Rachmaninoff and 20 violins, with

the southern wind, attached is the

harmonica like Siamese twins

Buzzard revision… According to the blue there’s a piece to brother Thomas revision follows itty-bitty turkey throat to read buzzard neck

All of us have sat one time or another reading this wall clock ticks we could be fishing, fresh tracking blood, young medicine,

Gracie had a thought, but no I’m in Pavlovs doggy sideshow, chasing bells and celebrating molten Monsanto from a raw meat mouth, Monsanto, an engineering plastic, sit with a chameleon memory and transparent lizard that crawls across the face of my past, I can barely see through it while a neon pterodactyl in the carnival day glow sky, flapping plastic leather wings while radar blips, fading out of range, leaves me a working man’s hobo, a grade less than master hobo, drifting from job to job for shit wages. I’d rather be an alcoholic writer.

Here, where we find the psilocybin in the shit of our existence, I find myself missing in action, while the archives on recorded cemetery somewhere or yet in brain field lay the poetry

??? red line riding a low tachometer depraved, and go for days without letting up

It’s raining and I am drinking beer, while one side of the river or the other, where the toxins and poisons enemy camp and pull raids and party and parade through my nervous center cities

All my relatives passing under that big sky,

all passing, all going south, somewhere in t

heir blood, all my relatives travois light and

gather there where the stuff is lush and abundant

...

Give me a couple of guns and a couple of cane poles, lay in a stock of hooks and bullets, some gardening seeds and tools in a sail cloth teepee and a round-trip ticket to nowhere and could you wrap that to go? And if you haven’t left already, then don’t pack, please turn back, don’t talk or make contact, cause nobody will be here, gone fishin'.

...

Poem to Amy, a

This book is dedicated to

going fishing, hunting cow pies,

and flying kites.

…

Panboy

a single sheet, pocket folded, burgundy ink on slate parchment, with a copper etching, by Rhoda Grossman, of the poet reclining nude. Printed at Kenzle's Third Coast Press 1978

...

On writing poems

Eat a bowl of fuck

was the only comment

Bernardo could make

on writing poems

...

Panboy's got a lot of balls.

Panboy's like that.

He’s got a lot of balls.

They hang between his

legs like a bunch of grapes.

...

Fried in the brain pan, you’re wondering the coast and digging clams and making fishers of some fine folks y’all fried in the brain pan, sucking salt tuna and workin' the boat, you fishers of small talk and tall tuna city evening too and cheese and bread and wine frog in the brain pan you hadn't ought to be getting stoned. It’s like I was telling my brother Earl, "You hadn't ought to be getting stoned when you’re putting up the summer screens or before you know it flies are buzzing all over your old ladies twat.

...

Tuna Fishing with Onions

after all night fucking we

got up late and she asked

was I going to works like that

smelling up tuna and I said,

yes, with onions.

...

Sherlock Wastebasket

"I actually have my period", she said, having been worried.

"I know", I said, being the Sherlock wastebasket I am

...

When you cried perverted me

I just shot this guy put it back

all in your mouth and let’s

give God another try.

…

Ice Cream Koans

A 1976 pocket chapbook.

Art by Rhoda Grossman

Plain Muse, narcotic Muse

chocolate Muse, ice cream cones

are poking fun and it’s giggling

…

I want you so bad to understand

what a fool what a fool

…

Just you and me and the scenery

and that hot muck where the mythos grows

…

Hunched into the wind

rushing to settle affairs

before death arrives

and dying embers.

…

Flies buzz screen door slam,

Shiva boogie, tugging her jeans

…

And so to Chinese patience

and Buddha tiger Jell-O

…

Acid yellow painted lines

a new blacktop road

they blow and dance away

…

With or without prepositions

Statue park breaks it up

for the freeway traveler

who wasted two shits by ???

for the bench sitter

…

A bird does not fly in the rain

across a dark windshield and

shiver my teeth… But

…

All evening at 60 miles an hour

night falls on the highway and

just before the sleet Madison

and Minneapolis were

mapped out

in the john

…

Hunched over the earth

the sky is all moon tonight

scraping frost from the windshield

…

Blushing she came to poetry class

with a letter reading in French

…

Can you draw dying dragons dripping déjà vu?

Can you drift on this Chinese junk?

…

I feel like drifting on the river…

Days go by and now splash

…

The sun sets on my

southern fried fingers

sucking an orange

…

Black coke flared nostrils

unbridled snorting on the

fingerboard

(a tiny ode to Hendrix)

…

Satin explosions spidering

eight points of light

fully synchromesh

…

A full four lane tourist highway

roars all night long in the middle

of nowhere.

…

Sucking the frost of

a December third moon

standing on a tractor

balling the earth

...

Either some vast

nostril sucking prana

is loving you or

something else is

sucking you

all by itself

...

Shutting down tonight

slowly letting the cars go by

and the temperature drop

...

Automatic rheostatic

satori pilot

locked on high

…

Oh those pirate nights and

ice cream cone days while

cheesecake cool lips dribble

blueberry beardedness

…

From

Love, Basho

Hi Vicki

I spend my days in wastefulness,

wastedness, thinking of you, thinking of you

And it’s so nice to be high again…

Getting so by again… thinking of you.

…

Richard Richard

Child of Zen

Full of it

…

Sweet Flag Root

You know where the sun comes up

but not where the roads toss you like

sticks in your second hexagram

Do you know where the sun comes

up but not wear night gathers over you

in that thick dust till rain pocks and

star flecks and the obsidian wind

and you know where…

…

The alphabet soup conversion kit $9.95

You wonder if you won’t someday

be into a can of soup with your spoon

well in hand… You stand in the field,

the wind blows, the oats are sewing you,

isn’t that wild?

…

Poof

So hankies, draped over nothing,

then flowers, then poof, nothing but

my sleeve

…

Poems from Pleasant Street

Taste treat recipes for cookie

Breathe a sigh of relief and believe it

Kiss the little C for me

Run your fingers through the boys hair.

Feel the sun good warming all over your own.

Breathe a sigh of relief and believe it

Shoot a full moon

Sneak a peek in the mirror

Laugh out loud at nothing

Breathe a sigh of relief and believe it

…

When once there was

Does it cause your concern,

is their Eskimo cold when once

there was fire in your belly?

When once. A particular night.

Your front porch. My prick in

my pocket. Your panties still on.

There was fire in your belly.

When now in your 23rd year.

Two children. Ex-husband.

Ex lovers. Some female parts

cauterized and laparoscopied.

Does it cause you concern?

Is there Eskimo cold? When

once there was fire in your belly.

…

Pleasant Street

Much as we get along and don’t

hello goodbye and I miss you

even when I look at you and

while we know our respective

places, though I tend to forgetting,

and while we won’t get married

or live together or have even sex

and though you don’t close the

screen door till I step off the curb,

there is something so pleasant on

Pleasant Street. We throw water

at each other instead of goodbye

and laugh in the kitchen instead of cry

and you don’t close the screen door

till I stepped off the curb.

…

Hey Mister

You know you’re getting older

when the neighborhood kids

call you "Hey Mister.*

*that goes for you too, "Hey lady.

…

Getting Lost Together

For Cookie

We get lost together, separately,

in other people, places, miscellaneous, etc.

And we could get found again, after while,

throwing ourselves into each others,

figuratively speaking, arms. I don’t know

what else to say.

You are there, vaguely somewhere and

in that same where, I know the roads,

country back, tourist town alley, and

vaguely someday I will knock on your

door. It will be the future already.

….

Pleasant Street and other poems

AZML

::::::::

Goodbye Delmar blue

The Someday I’m going to write a book book

For Kathleen

Pony Express/Austin

Member AZML

The official Goodbye Delmar Blue,

revised list of titles only, poems not included:

When your forwarding expires I won’t know where to reach you

Springtime like a long shot at a horse race

Chameleon Memory

Squeaky Mice

Give thanks for your freedom: attend church

Del Mar subdivision

April May

Mrs. Peaches

Falling Madly in Bed with You

Genital Chords

Cat Lick Job

Ambulatory Siesta

Too many poets selling typewriters

Hobo with a Cloth Napkin

Grocery Lists and Poetry

Buzzard: revisions

The Alphabet Zoupe Toy Book Game

…

Someday we will float through New Orleans

like a bag of dead cats thrown in at Sioux City

nonchalantly

…

Where is our airplane?

A man says by the White brothers a drink.

One of the brothers says where is our airplane?

Tiny said that. Tiny, my brother, sitting old style

somewhere in southern Wisconsin blasting

bullshit poetry over illegal airwaves.

He never writes it down.

And I, of course, scribble what I can.

Honorable mentions to hawk face kitty

…

???

Some previously unpublished

Five above

Five above the limit

we come rolling into town

hootin' and hollerin'

with the top down on our

vintage Russell Edson

…

Freight train over Kathleen

On a Milwaukee railroad bridge deck trestle

an unknown spray painted Kathleen and for

a long long time I thought of her often until

one day it was a freight train over Kathleen.

April 6, 1988

10 years after

…

Melanoma Roma

When the whole of your existence

carries hazard labels and you're stinking

of carcinogens like a puppy in skunk shit,

the soup says: lift your spinal tailed cranial kite,

set the breeze with your feet, and let go of it.

May 1, 1988

…

While on tradewinds

Supple warm brown

earth breast of life

Gail comes in,

kind of brown skin,

bringing fruit from Jamaica

1975

…

Jen Jen

I feel some strange poetry coming on,

having less to do with words or having

to do with fewer words or more to do

with taking up that rock space, watching

cars go by listening to nothing and waiting

for weeks to go south for the winter.

August 18, 1976

…

Going Home

Riding the glacier home, south on a

southern breeze on that wide star way

you know so well

Sleet freezes the muck in your nose.

You laugh, snort the wind and take

the reins in your teeth

Rolling up some bud and picking songs

on a tentative guitar, it’s onto the ??? song

hot tea, for just an afternoon occasion.

So nicely twisted as Hunter would say.

Shanti Deva soon enough climbs on and

takes the reins.

1975 or 1976

….

Scratching crackles over the phone

while doodling someone specific in mind.

You hang up the phone, little Buddha’s asleep,

the doodles are phoning themselves

1975

…

It’s when earth ball gossip sucks you

like a pucker piss poor group that you

wonder what dumb fuck this is through

your mealymouth mime of techno rape

1975

…

Side One in E flat Major

Sometimes he turns on Beethoven

and stands up for a performance and

sometimes he doesn’t turn him on at all.

…

Utterly insane staring at this brick blank wall clutching at sanity

…

Hexagram XX

Six lines in a mirror I took only one

Something will come up. Something always does.

Yeah and it’s a long way in here and five other lines.

…

Pathless one

With tolerance like pathless one

I follow the river up and up north

of the creek on the edge of the map

and discover it dripping between my legs.

Oh fat beard Buddha, maker of the old way,

follower of the clever silence, you are not winking

at yourself, you are indistinguishable ancient. On a

mountain goading me. On a mountain goading me.

1975

…

Set on being nobody, saving

nothing, heartlight caring,

little enough, and building

no castles but clouds move

…

Tea and Chinese patience

eating Buddha tiger Jell-O

…

Rainbow violins,

stream of light,

caressing you,

with rivulet fingers

…

Masai pray to the rain

live with their cow and

all the harmony of the

vast rolling and wandering

and leaving no trail and

their cow is too big and

killing their self and the

Massi dance thirsty and

pray to the rain.

…

Hot lava

Rusty blonde Mandela

in lemon twist reflection

and all is outside crystalness

when she’s seating feather cushion

to meditate on that and I my citric tongue.

…

Earth rhythm rumbles

my flinching meditation

and vanishes echoing

…

Ashen dim smoke eyes

staring as the skin draws

tight across your rib cage

of pre-historical rude art

drawing within

1975

…

Snoopy dancing to some of Schröder's Beethoven

High up on my winged heels

I’m still grinning in the silence

of the rush and eerily stepping

over this frothing dogs mouth.…

…

“Stir the pot to avoid food for thought sticking to the bottom.“

– B. D. Colen

…

You know where

Do you know where the sun comes up

but not quite where the roads read,

you, like sticks in a second hexagram

scattering puddles of blue mud butterflies

while down at your boots your head's in

the clouds rippling between your feet

As night gathers over you

like thick dust in burial grounds

of throwaway poetry, you know

where the sun comes up,

when rain pocks your constellation face,

and blows the obsidian wind

…

I keep pacing and looking

and needing to see that bird

that whistles like Corinna Corinna

there ... pulling up at the curb

…

Winding pathways

mountain bare feet

carrying water in

the Navajo sun

carrying water in

the Navajo sun

…

Joshua

Were you making poetry

in the face of growing headlights

riding along the nightlight greeting

formlessness head-on?)

Was that you that trite expression

they scooped from the trunk and

hung on the library wall?

Judy came by that afternoon

wondering was that you, Josh,

was that you?

1976

…

Standing there in that blue gauze dawn

cartoon fishing in the Dr. Seuss dew

long after your lights turned off the driveway

smoking there nude while the moon floods

wide awake while the crickets freeze

To Buffalo Rosebud

August 8, 1976

…

Honeycomb harp plays

unknown to me the

drooling devotion of an

all day sucker while the

dunes sand shift and the

cottonwoods green waxen rustle

…

End of 1975 and 1976

…

PandaLoon June 1997

A hybrid beast of Muses and a publication of Small Potatoes Press

Happy, stupid, playful, wailing, sailing on a bamboo boat, eating sheaves of leaves and dreams all the tasty poems you wrote.

Panda loon pantaloon how is it that I know your name?

Never mind original intentions. You hold the first issue of pantaloon. I hope you find something of value in it. Why do we have who do we have in the first issue? Poets that sent in their poems. And fathers, mothers, sisters, brothers.

Among them a budding new poet in a contest winner, an island farmer, a columnist in counselor, a prisoner in the system, one who would bring poetry readings to local cable television, the teenage lyricist, and me, a guy who wonders why we can’t do this all again.

Pantaloon number one

Hobo with a Cloth napkin, 1997

There’s a note at the bottom that says

Poet recently found the title of this poem,

in a box of stuff, written on a paper napkin,

from 1978. The rest of the poem promptly

followed the discovery of the title.

Panda loon number two 1998

Tribal story

In the olden days, before there was writing,

there was scratching in the dirt, on spirit rocks,

on cave walls, and poets, lyricist, storytellers,

comedians, and perhaps even mimes, told the

tribal story, kept the ritual history, reminded

the people who they were, in the midst of

wherever that was

They were revered and they were nobody special,

everyone did it and to some degree or another,

everyone still does

For keeping the song story alive is no more than

what you tell yourself, and others, with the very words

you say and your artful actions

That is your story and the story holds the world view,

and in that simple since everyone is a poet, artist,

minstrel, mime, profit, clown, historian, a keeper

of the truth, your truth.

Own it.

…

Pandaloon issue number five

Reeling

Reeling in adversity

like fishes from a

stocked pond, you’re

mentally mounting

trophies, while silt

fills your waders.

Aren’t you about

over your limit?

1998

...

EDITS? Yes, a few. This is a step toward an eBook.

Posted April 24th 2022, Dads 91st birthday.

....

Historical notes

PandaLoon issue seven 1999. There was no poem from me.

Issue number 10 February 2000. No poem from me.

Issue number 11 March 2000 also no poem from me.

Also in the front cover I noticed that it says no publishing monthly one dollar each or $10 a year. In March 2000 I was in Cudahy. When I began Pandaloon in 1997 Margie still worked for me. In those days email was an infant and so everybody mailed a physical copy that had to be retyped. Now between late ’97 and early 2000s. All of a sudden I created a chapbook monster.

Dropped like a hot potato.

Tuesday, May 17, 2022

Door cover draft

Friday, May 13, 2022

Hang on! Greedy Bastards!

A Beautiful Day for Rest

Palm Labyrinth

Smile until you feel your breath

Recall Alert

Sunday, April 24, 2022

No Door 74

Saturday, April 23, 2022

The Four Horseman

Door cover draft

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