hot summer nights

& i wish li bai could share this bottle of red
with me
it being nothing special

a cheap vino
to help pass the hot nights
as i settle in

to another late summer night
when i can't sleep
the mosquitoes buzzing their own

& i cup my hands
as if to make a telescope
to see betelgeuse

with our naked eye
as we catch a buzz
& make verses out of

the whole silly
portion of what we
call our lives

absolute music

summer night in the pandemic
my body is sheltered in place 
but my heart is wandering 
in the 'midnight blue'

i've posted this video before.  i love it.  the song.  the video.  this was released as i was leaving my teens & entering young adulthood.  & yet, i felt like a kid.  & this video brings me back to those days of sneaking out of the house in the middle of the night to meet up with that special one.  plus, the leads in this vid are so beautiful.  both of them.  they embody the lust of youth for mystery & adventure.   perfect for a hot summer night when one can't sleep & one is alive to the sensual mind & body of what might be possible. 

remain in light
after the talking heads 

i use my laptop & my phone to write
but today i went old fashioned
wrote a note using pen & paper

my handwriting is always bad
penmanship is not my strong suit
but now all my lines look like asemic writing

inglish is not my native language, said franco
beltrametti, but language is not my native speech
we are all but part of the same world

even as my eyes cross & my tongue tied
this wild veritable being
but it is getting tougher for me to be optimistic

if catullus were alive today

                        oh lesbia, i do not
understand the agora today
there be a pandemic in full force
felling the infirm & aged & also some of the young
while the numbers of the sick dying & dead
increase by the hour
so much that if you don't know someone dead today
you will tomorrow
oh lesbia grant me the grace
when i go shopping at the grocery store
& see no one wearing a mask
i beseech you please grant me the grace
to get thru the day
grant me the strength my love
to keep me from knocking
these fools
upside the head

mask up!!

this goose was surprised to find that at a very crowded beach on lake natoma, his home, on this very sunny pleasant early summer saturday, hardly a person was wearing a mask or practicing social distancing.

'don't these people know there's a pandemic raging!' shouted mr. goose.  'geez!  christalmighty!  we can avoid a very deadly second wave if you wear a fucking mask and stay at least 2 meters apart.  hell, we aren't even done with the first wave!'

mr. goose than asked for a couple of ruffles potato chips & a sip of diet pepsi before asking a stoner sitting down beach if he could get a hit off that roach.

'man, that is good,' mr. goose said.  than flicked his tail feathers at all & sundry before flying away in disgust.

fragment

i went walking my city streets ready to hate
but beauty stopped me in my tracks
& punched me in the face

i was just reading another poet's blog about taking the TV quiz show jeopardy test online.  this poet & i are around the same age.  the mind might still hold a lot of data but speed of recall is something faded.  like this poet i am too pretty good with certain subjects like literature cinema art history & i have in this decade have been reading a great more science than i did when i was a lad.  but sports?  or opera?  forget about it.  anna sent me a link to this online test thinking i would do well.  my recall is still fairly good on the subjects i have strength in but the speed with which i can access that data in my noggin has slowed down.  as this poet said, & i concur, fucking age.  still, my love of the world & my curiosity of it has not abated.  i read as much as i've always have.  but don't ask me to take a geometry test.  still, i recall in the early '90s going down to the jeopardy studio in burbank with my brother who took the quiz as the first step to get on to the show.  the contestants would be comprised of college students.  i remember that the studio in burbank was tucked in a suburban housing tract.  the studio was tiny & the test was administered to potential contestants in the gallery.  the host of jeopardy, alex trebek, announced the test via video.  i sat next to my brother as he took the test.  i don't recall the subjects but what i was thinking was that producers were probably looking for photogenic contestants.  i don't mean movie star looks or whatever.  i mean some people look better on camera.  at the end, my brother didn't make the first cut.  later on, friends & family asked why i didn't take the test because i have a high threshold of useless trivia.  which is the same reason anna forwarded me the online test.  but i think my brain works slow.  i know a lot of useless data but my recall is around the tortoise running rate, even when i was younger.  & i am sure the hell not photogenic to be before a bank of TV cameras.  still, it was fun & eye opening to travel to burbank & the jeopardy studios to see how small a working TV studio really is. my memory turns to a moment after the test.  my brother & i are walking back to our car.  i don't recall if we planned a weekend in LA or not.  we probably did because we often traveled to LA in those days.  my brother & i got to shooting the shit with another contestant who didn't make the first cut.  he was, i think, an engineering student from UCLA.  i recall he was a handsome dude with lush black hair with a streak of grey.  i don't remember what we talked about.  certainly, we discussed the test & the subjects of that test.  but what my mind recalls is a very pleasant afternoon on a TV studio lot in the midst of a suburban housing tract.  that was the magic of hollywood.  on TV the game show jeopardy looks larger than life.  but in reality it is shot in very small studio tucked in to a neighborhood where people like you & i live.       

a medicine for melancholy

cold beer in one hand
fistful of potato chips in the other

poetics

poetry need not be fancy or hi-falutin' poetry is ordinary & common like breathing eating sleeping shitting etc etc poetry can be learned in the classroom or in the streets poetry is words on the page & on the screen poetry is drawing painting & film poetry is sound poetry is visual poetry is the action between anger sadness awe hate love & sex poetry begins in the mind & the sex poetry likes to eat & drink poetry is a music video & a film poetry can hang in a museum & be inked on the skin poetry is in binary language & the pixels of social media poetry is bound in cloth & paper poetry doesn't care if you have a graduate degree for it lives within every sentient being open to her poetry is not a muse but poetry likes you anyway

taking out the trash
              early summer heat
another moon

quote unquote

People often ask when things will return to normal, said T. Christopher Bond, an associate director at Bristol Myers Squibb. “At first I told them: ‘The world has changed and will be different for a long time. This is the crisis of our lifetime and we need to embrace it,’” he said. “But that depressed them. So now I say, ‘Well, we know more every day.’”

When 511 Epidemiologists Expect to Fly, Hug and Do 18 Other Everyday Activities Again [New York Times (6/8/20)]

anti/haiku

i am asleep / i am not asleep / as i work in the garden i hear anna's hummingbirds chirp / for they are territorial / demanding their place in this world / so i fill the fountain with water / that they like to use / for drinking & for bathing / i am tired / my country is exploded / young people in the streets / demanding justice / the right to be / in the words of james baldwin / ordinary / to be 'left alone' / & recognize the elemental fact / of their human being / i am asleep / i am not asleep / i take a nap / i can hear anna's hummingbird's chirp their place / for water / in the fountain / i can hear the surveillance choppers circling downtown / the young people / in the streets / demanding recognition of their lives / i am asleep / i am flawed / i try to write a haiku about the fountain / the chirps of anna's hummingbirds / the chop of the police helicopters / i am awake

an old punk song that is always timely
 

this song is dedicated to our brothers, sisters & non-binaries in the streets

50 years is such a short time ago

peace

on his birthday

how old is too old is
never old enough

know what i'm thinking?
                          tell me please
because i forgot

in the safeway parking lot

i do my chores before curfew is imposed

adjust my mask 

hear the nearby police sirens

watch army choppers circle downtown

know barricades are erected 

& humvees on patrol

early summer 2020

102 f

so hot 

a fly buzzed by 

& exploded in midflight