Monthly Archives: January 2014

Poem:

31 Friday Jan 2014

Posted by in Beer, Poem

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“Home of the Cowboys”

I tried a drink of whiskey long past
due, it was a dribbling reminder of how
bad my past was.

Who drinks this? Weird, a flammable
liquid, volatile and toxic ethyl alcohol
an early fuel for rockets, what were
we thinking?

The campaign is on, beer and bullshit
on one side, the path is wide there, many
toward pain and destruction, it is the truth.

Narrow the way to enlightenment, Powerless
all of us and capable in equal measure
of doing good and bad, having good and bad
visit—

We are windless mills in oceans still,
wondering at and wondering at God’s will.
Fear causes actions against the natural tide,
we run away and we hide. We try to find that
great job to set us up forever before we look
into our soul and ask of ourselves, “what do
you want to do?”

Decide on something, ask God that He or She
might bless the choice if it be pleasing.

The country is full of gold, white rocks and red
valleys, the rivers as highways transporting
blues music and Iowa corn. New England
autumn’s got me thinking of Chinese blossoms,
so many travelers on vacation here.

Then someone asks whether I might like to
have a beer?

When the pain was great, fear around and confusion
at its peak how great, a ticket, a way out, I can
fail and drink that, there’s my excuse I’ll take it.

Why have God if we can have wine, excess, parties
full of party dress, pomp and splendor celebrating
ourselves and our greatness?

Snow is falling on Interstate 80 right now, my
Volkswagen Jetta not used to it, I hope they
bring a plow, there’s gonna be hell to pay, if
I can’t make it through Nebraska today—

Wyoming, home of the Cowboys, shoot me with
love. Utah with your mountains and views, get
me through this trip so I can see you, my truth:

That I never needed more than faith and a hobby,
my career here impossible without sobriety.

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New POEM!!

31 Friday Jan 2014

Posted by in Beer, California, Children, Feminism, Kids, Mater Dolorosa, Nature, Poems, Poetry, Political, Voting

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“Mater Dolorosa”

Thank you, the healing power
of belief before me up a hill toward
deer and antelope. Help me play
this prayer a cross-country fire
spreading with wind up and over cliffs
in Colorado, the mountains out of a
Disney ride cutting through.
It’s impossible to think: why we listen
to wisdom on all matters convenient,
turn away from obvious measures of
benefit because we won’t let go.

Let children vote if they can read,
want to, know the issues. Let go.

Better than a drunk man, surly, jaded,
ticked off heading to the polls because
he is of the “right” age.

“Here’s to good friends, tonight is
kinda’ special” and other beer slogans
contributing to killing my friends and almost
helped get me.

Join me in a an anti-alcohol campaign:
“drink flammable liquids and get burned.”
Will that work? Some scoff but forget:
life is making an effort, ask Mrs. Chick from
Dickens’ Dombey and Son, a book about
Dombey’s daughter, hooray for irony
and women’s lib.

Grandma ran for senate in 1936 and seven,
represented California at the republican
convention, got creamed in the primary
but God bless her for trying.

Louise Ward Watkins, a last name you
see on blacks and whites, we mixed in
the middle of the Civil War fight, and
well—

The seed that carried me must have come
out all right.

Praise God, Rise and Shine get the day
but first pray, turn it all over to something
bigger. Results cannot be controlled, just
effort, good luck!!

If life gets you down, write it and sing it
out loud, nothing floors you, this is the
dream of the foremothers that peace
would reign in the land like castles of
sand, always needing attention.

At ease soldiers, take this song and
transcend its message, whistle
something without words, get through
the day to day, and find with me heaven
as a peace of mind of knowing we did
our best…

My best comes without alcohol, trudges
the road of “happy destiny” as the A.A.’s say,
climbs a hill in heat or rain with bags
on my back seeking healing, I’m off
to Sierra Madre’s Mater Dolorosa.

Find your retreat house now, mine
on the other side of fog, rolling down—

I sweat, I tear, I believe say a prayer;
healing is mine before I see the deer.

Do re mi fa so la ti do, before I see the deer.

Poem:

30 Thursday Jan 2014

Posted by in Love, Poems, Poetry, Strength

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Love, Heat and Strength

When Clint looked at his enemies…
When homeless I stayed warm, the keys…
I make my way, strong and proud into
the unknown, searching for and finding
truth under the elm tree.

The difference between the stars
and the sun is the difference between you
and me. Nothing

Soft winds do shake the darling buds of May,
for me a dream in black and white of
antagonists, threatening to steal my peace.

The war is always fought for peace of
mind; we don’t know until we know, and
sometimes it’s after someone dies.

Songs that remember look to rain
showers of love on beauty, sharp stinging
nettles in Maryland whistling Dixie, taking
me back to a day where my last name held
slaves in captivity, persons with blood
related to me.

Now I have brothers of both color, I love
that tweaked song called life that makes rainbows
of mistakes, twists the sky upside down
makes everything a prism, shadows from
trees keeping the sunlight managed into
something we can rightly use.

The blooms? They’re already in bloom,
some would say too impatient the impatiens
requiring little else but water and minerals
this milky substance coming from barrels,
the ocean a tumbling ray biting necks and
cocks and doodle-doo’s, bringing religious
and spoken freedom to the masses, as long
as you say what others want you to say.

We lost our freedom the moment we decided
to breathe. If you don’t anything nice
have to say, scramble your tongue, lock it
up, season it with love and remember:

Good things come, don’t wait, make amends
for all the rhymes I wrote that sounded insane;

Give all you have post-sag into middle age,
remember children and make it better for
them, come out the haze with a flashlight
offer it to them. The world is theirs now,
less and less mine, less and less, be strong:

Love, heat and strength, bring your day
to tomorrow, and watch yesterday grow
into a great today.

We have access to the time machine that
is forgiveness, in it click the numbers, mine
is 1984 when I died.

“The great life this could have been” is
the anthem I cry out in lonely nights
to my lonely lost young friends. Be they
young enough, take hold my words,
give up alcohol, drugs, declare peace
and tell her you love her.

6 Poems in One:

29 Wednesday Jan 2014

Posted by in Poems, Surfing, Volleyball

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“Cuddling with Dogs”

There is a place only in the past
remembered in blue and red, sand
a color of off-white, Hov and Dodd,
Frohoff, Jon Stephenson, Hanley,
Vrebalovich, Karch would visit but
this was the southbay.

Orange Court from fields green, recalling
my days of little league; three strikes you’re
out three times in a row my first try against
Kevin Costello, fast big and left handed.

Allendale served as field and bed, I’d
return years after playing to remember.
Homeless I wrote and considered what
it was and what it is,

What it could be waves to the shore,
La Jolla Shores to be exact, soul-
surfing by myself.

Taylor and Stephen took me out at
first light to Malibu. Lent me a 5’4”
and I got up. They might have been
happier than me about it. Came full
circle dropping in on overhead waves
in Oceanside a year or two later.

Then I broke Taylor’s board and headed
for the sand to play more volleyball.

Surfing USA was not a song by Britney,
she wrote few songs but sung ones like
“Not Yet a Woman” and “I’m a Slave 4 U.”

Nice that she wanted to serve, very
Christian.

“The Tao of Britney” is a book not yet
written and probably for good reason.

Years ago I was caught in a 4-year
Revolution, make it five… Motel-ing
it without credit.

Cuddling with dogs, the face of
dreams getting weepy by the fire
yesterday burns.

Today was a victory

Car Poem:

29 Wednesday Jan 2014

Posted by in Cars, Poems, Poetry

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Poets Don’t Own Cars

We rent and we drive on occasion,
but lock us into payments?

Never.

The vroom vroom, powering and
speeding and smoking our way to this
and that? The noise, the hustle?

We prefer the slow stroll, the train
ride, the bus up the cliff, the hike
mile after mile, five senses becoming
six as we know there is more…

Rooftop to rooftop we hurl headlong
into vacant doorways of hope, dash to
and from buildings of dreams, scents
and poverty bringing us out of metal
and into the sweat of failure.

We must report something and so
stomach the stench, there must be a ground
if we are to elevate. Support comes from
loving people, we are dedicated to words
but know they are nothing compared to
what we describe,

The ultimate hope of all endeavor to
yield peace of mind, this one mine as I
deny the mechanic’s offer to ditch another
hunk at high speeds—

I take one look back at my old life as
I speed down the freeway of God’s
paradise in my wife’s fast muscle car:

I have an errand to run and I’m tired of
the walk, I’ll play this song, burn this gas
this time, but can’t wait to shed the metal

for a walk again my friend, toward the more
elegant train of rhyme.

Pasadena Seasons

29 Wednesday Jan 2014

Posted by in California, Home, Los Angeles, Nature, Pasadena, Poems, Poetry, Socal

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As we skip winter this year, I reflect
back on past seasons, and generally
how they work here in Pasadena, CA.

Chinese magnolias bloom in January
or February, depending on the sun, this
year January.

Jacarandas in May, Jasmine in May or
June, and other plants that smell good
the same.

Agapanthus enjoy May and June as well,
again unless the sun is stubborn not
allowing for winter.

Summers are hot. So much so that I
do believe we have seasons here. You
better believe we know when Fall has
arrived to spell us, give us a break.

That’s the big transition to me, brutal heat
to pleasant, we are challenged enough by
weather that when added with earthquakes
we try to rival Florida’s hurricanes and Midwest
and eastern cold.

Minnesota laughs at my seasons, but I’ll
say: Einstein was right, it’s all relative, and
when you live where I live you count them out
like anywhere else, 1, 2, 3, 4.

Just because we don’t much freeze in winter
doesn’t mean we appreciate the Spring
any less, or in changing from shorts to pants
in October look east to smile and keep score.

Polito-ReligaSpiritual Poem:

29 Wednesday Jan 2014

Posted by in Poems, Poetry, Political, Spiritual

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Modern American Monarchy

We are still stuck in the past, or is
it the future? We forget truth, the
fact that we are truly powerless.

Obama comes into the room, any
President of the United States, and
time stops, King Obama.

I thought I as a voting citizen was the
big cheese in this monopoly? We want
to bow down to something, and choose
that position I guess.

Remember when the Jews were in the
desert having recently been freed from
slavery, and God himself was their king,
their everything?

Then one foggy day, they came to
God and said: we want to have “kings”
like other nations had.

The LORD with all capital letters symbolizing
in English the Hebrew YHWH, replied:

“I would be your king.”

But since God loved his people so much,
he gave them their king, Saul then David and
so on down through the ages to Obama.

I giggle to think of the insanity in thinking
another man has more power than me. He
does not, not real power.

For real power go to God, YHWH, Jehovah
Allah Supreme, Higher Power, Creator,
Mother Nature Outer Space Whatever!!!!

Just don’t hurt yourself bowing to another
whose blood is flowing. A waste…

Better to find life between you and your God,
in that find your place.

Must Like Volleyball? :)

28 Tuesday Jan 2014

Posted by in Poems, Poetry, Sports, Volleyball

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Bill Taylor’s A-15

This is not about a rocket ship,
flight low under radar dropping
bombs on innocent and guilty alike.

It’s about waking up in the morning,
deciding the beach is nice;

Drop volleyballs down on the sand,
kiss them goodnight.

It’s about a blonde sandy mop, two
boys dreaming to be great, too far
from the sun and sand to be too great.

Taylor and I shook it up, got lessons
in beach volleyball by its best lesson-
givers.

Indoors we dealt out some pain, depended
on the level, we always ruled the
small schools.

Then one foggy Christmas Eve, Taylor
came to Bruinville. He sizzled many
pits on his way to fifteen kills!!

That’s a volleyballer’s way to say:

The kid did allright!!

In the face of names like Sealy and
Landry all over six feet six, six feet
Taylor from Pasadena had his way,
passing nails and tooling blocks
like best craftsmen at your house
pulverizing concrete against a deadline.

Meanwhile, Watkins took to the sand
Smith left (Taylor’s other name was Smith).
Watkins’ other name was Bill.

On the sand he trained and failed,
trained and failed. Then won, then won,
then won, then won the next morning
putting him into the Winner’s bracket finals.

Then Won!

A-rated from nothing, inlander finding
a way with friends watching grunting too
loud but it’s forgivable at 5-4 to make it
6-4 on the switch, you dig moving left,
keep going that way getting the set to your
offside.

Thing is your beach “off” side is your indoor
ON-side, you revel in the movement, love
the dig then hit in a way that only Taylor
himself (Bill’s former setter) knows.

AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH
HHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH
HHHHHHH — !

That grunt resonated to the strand where
family friends watched.

Something there is that doesn’t like to lose.
That once you find a way to win, you rinse
and repeat it for as long as you can.

No more wading in the sand;
No more waiting for the band—

Smith and I like playing a harmonica
at the USC Trojan band—we’re on top!

We all deserve it once, Taylor and I got
it twice, once is his, once is mine, but when
I add the moments up in my head I always
get “sublime.”

Love

27 Monday Jan 2014

Posted by in Poems, Poetry

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Despite the pain, the gruff
tough, the truth hard to bear…

Despite the mire, the funeral pyre,
the sick of this and that, the
sick and tired…

Love finishes days with its coat
of solace, its day remembered, its
peace of mind, the rainbow after rain,
swept skies alive with stars

Santa Barbara winds keeping maintenance
men and women busy, surfers happy,
the golden sun an anthem of peace
greeting the patient every day.

God is this, is in this, Good Orderly
Direction or Higher Power, guiding us
softly, abruptly always truthfully into
new things and change.

The key to life is not in words, ask
Borges or Lao Tsu; you could ask me
by now, I like to kick it with Longfellow
some calm nights and remember when
the day is done.

Build your dreams a day at a time, Frost
beating sharp drums against night,
tools of the trade, outdoors a game…

Best played by those in love with
nature, man and womankind alike,
the sun becoming shade, the crucifixion
in light, the end beginning

The upstream fight

 

2010 Poem:

27 Monday Jan 2014

Posted by in Poems, Poetry

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“Sometimes the Stars Shine Brighter”

It’s for the old reason I write this poem—
to save the day from lonely ruin;
I want to remember the good times spent—
dream of tomorrows and where they went;

I love the sunshine, the stars shine brighter
when the rain cleans the sky of doubt;
I used to think all green things, money
to diamond rings would piece the peace together.

I used to think I could cloud the sky with stormy weather.

I used to know a guy who left the dream to others,
cried at night for things unsaid, dreams unrealized,
when it was true: If I had been looking up instead of down
I’d see the rainbow; another swept sky, stars shining bright.

There’s always a chance before the light.