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Panboy, Gone Fishin', and some previously unpublished works.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
II
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
Copyright 1979 D.L.W.
AZML
::::::::
Goodbye Delmar blue
The Someday I’m going to write a book book
For Kathleen
Copyright 1979 David White
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
…
PJ
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.