Sparrows
A breath of air kisses my cheek
as a mating pair of birds
careen past my face
in a wild dance of procreation.
A frenzy of excitement is left in their wake
reigniting old feelings of my youth
chasing my share of females in heat
or looking for something longer lasting
with a young man’s wandering heart.
2-04
Go with your God into rapture
Leaving us heathen behind
With the mess you’ve created.
Remove all of the forests
Then pave the land
And put up a civilization
In the name of your God.
Suck the very life juices out of earth
Then simply disappear
into the lap of your belief
when the rapture comes
and from all who seem to know
The time is close.
What if the end is created by greed
And yes, your God is a greedy one
Who rules with an iron fist
Kills the unrighteous
To purge the earth of non-believers.
The crusades did it
Hitler did it twice
Why can’t you do it now?
The end is almost here anyhow.
Dec 03
We spent a few more day in Yosemite then decided to go to Tahoe and visit Randy’s grandfather in Kings Beach.
After another overnight journey at forty-five miles an hour, we arrived at the lake with few remaining joynts and nine dollars between us.
Staying at his grandfathers trailer park we were able to remain in Tahoe for another three days before our money ran out.
On the last night, after deciding to return to the San Francisco Bay Area, I went into a gas station to take a leak and sitting on the back of the toilet, in contrasting black, stuffed full of money, sat a joyously fat leather wallet. Being a teenager with no scruples, I grabbed that billfold, sprinted back to the car and screamed for Randy to get us out of there.
After going through the wallet, we found a disappointing fifty dollars cash and a pile of credit cards.
It was mid summer, a year before the summer of love. I was sixteen and free and looking for adventure.
The smoking den out back of Randy Blacks parents house was the place I spent most of my time. The sheer poundage of smokable marijuana that found it’s way into that building exiting only as a vaporous cloud sometimes, even now, boggles my mind. Many plans of adventure were hatched and blearily worked out in that building. Very few actually bore fruit but the ones that did were doozys.
Randy and I sat one morning, completely hazed into a stupor with the latest Colombian shipment. On a whim we got into his old, ratty, fifty four Chevy, borrowed from his dad. Between us we had twenty dollars and a pound of weed. Then a pound of weed was $65.00 and we could finance a trip and have as much to smoke as we wanted.
The twenty got us to our first stop, Yosemite. Gas was twenty cents a gallon and a fill up was three dollars and change.
The way you dress
and hold your head
make you the perfect person
in the perfect café.
When you smile, I feel weak
and stumbled with words
I’d never before considered
on that perfect night
in the perfect café
I held your hand
for a fleeting moment
looked into your eyes
during the perfect moment
in the perfect café.
You walked in and out
of my life so fast
and left me standing
alone in this perfect café.
You left this glove
the smell of cologne
a perfect memory
in one perfect moment
at the perfect café.
I’ve come back for years
expecting your return.
No one steps through
the perfect door
sits on that perfect chair
at the perfect café.
I sent you a letter
in the perfect envelope
with a perfect stamp and
you returned it today
to the perfect café
Nov 99