Happy Halloween.

Thank you for reading  

Ride 

Between us three hours

Flying so at five thirty I ride

Share. No I don’t really 

Want to share so I 

Lyft there. My town

dark & lonely

Avenues go on in each

direction beyond me

the driver has Has 

Congratulations on

The radio. 

At the airport all terminals

are closed. We stand in line

together some have pillows. you 

stand around—you start to pick

Angelenos out of the crowd. Over

dressed, chest forward. Phone out

But at least we are

together. I start thinking about 

predestination. More planes 

that explode in the air 

do it with open seats. Full 

planes take off somewhere 

and land. Just

think of it: all of us

together. & yet

Transported. 

Injured

I can tell from 

the times I catch 

myself laughing

Or shouting

Sitting with ease in 

renewed congress 

with family—or

trusted friends

that I have been 

asleep in the

coat pocket of

dark waters. I try 

and remember

thier faces. Their

creasing eyes or

elevated inflections. 

I hold them fondly

like origami of 

goodbyes & fare 

well.

Just in case. 

Catch

In Memory of the Dodgers Baseball Club

At the Roadhouse

your tramp’s beard 

could not betray your 

rabbit teeth, azure 

eyes, dirty 

Dodgers gear. 

Orel Hershiser. 

You warn me don’t 

try to attain success 

too soon. Wait till I’m

older. That it ruined you.

Now you ride the rails

between underground

homeless cities connected

by thousands of miles of 

tunnellage.

I’m not even interested, I 

don’t judge or get 

sanctimonious. All I want to

know is: can you still 

get that arm to throw?  

We use your bronzen, 

greased signed baseball 

from 88. And you square 

yourself 

and really focus.

The pitch comes out 

wild and lopsided

and disastrous. 

You hit a mailbox

crater a windshield

—a small dog. All 

of them 

Kaput.

And as you throw I saw 

the pain mount—run

into your old 

shoulder like a river. Old 

machine, red faced on a little

mop body

chugging but

still little

and furious. 

Ripe

In Habana, warm

sudden rain hisses red tile.

We eat Guayaba.

Dizzy.

On re wind we

do it all again.

Again on Sunset

Like the first

time but never

again like the first time.

Lately I am making a

list.  Of Nevers.

Never take me back

to that first bar Where

we gasp snapped

menthol laughter

And our knees touch

in the dim. Never pound

your black heart with

mine.  Never become

dizzy with distrust again.

Tasty. 

On our worst nights

when we can

scarcely stand each

other,

I will go and get

my keys, so you can

hear them jingle off the

hook. We will both know

it means I am sorry.

We will squeeze into my cold

car and run the heater

while you still dont speak to me

as if to say:

here you are just the same.

We’ll go down into town and,

stop for self-service and

light cigarettes–end over

end. And if we still wont

talk then I promise

I will take you to the

diner with the bad

carpet and the fresh,

all-night, donuts. And

turn my cup of coffee

until we cant remember

where any of it began.

And he brings us our donuts.

Dark.

After you were gone,

I felt you.

The way lost children

can feel their parents

at the back

or the front

when they get lost in supermarkets.

The way

a radio feels

its signal from

deep space

light years in passing–

here for

just one burst of

transience–

the feeling of you

watching and

waiting for a

reply.

Coat.

I coat your

hard edges in

funny stories. So

they see the smile

instead. Your

musical whistle,

your mouthful

accent, are all

my favorite songs.

The greatest

hits. But

you have been like

a stray dog’s foot

wandering

all of your life. Is there

time for us? Even

Telemachus

& Cat Stevens

found time to

mend the rift.

he said: if you
find a way,

and I am
gone–

come back for
me. I want to

see. In that

dimming
memory he looks
so certain.

& young.
& still so young.

Sling.

that name.
like silly babble.
we were so afraid
of the way he
never slept and always
stood out in the street
when a bad rain was
coming.

Tread
We used to get
bad storms. The real
bad ones knocked

out the power. So
that all of the house
became heavy

shadows. I was un
employed, so it became
my job to climb down in

our basement’s hungry
mouth, jagged tooth staircase
case odored with unseen

things we had
packed and forgot

ten steps into the drip
ing flooded gray water
cross to the fuse box. I

will never forget the warm

smell
of rotten eggs.

Treasure

a briefcase lush with

origami frogs–lined paper,

springs open for flies.

Ghost.

                                                g

                           o                                             h
s s    t   to   s

                            t   s  o s  t
hoh      og  hoss                                  s
gohggg

                                                                     tso                    h

             g
o gh                          h

                      ts

                                  ggggggggggggghost. h

Legend.

The years we drove those 

purple highways; when we counted

time in sunsets.

Wild.

Little path between,

the markers are you well kept?

I scour the bracken of years. 

Ornament. 

After the world broke 

Atlas rearranged his grasp.

It holds him up too.

Misfit.

In film,

it is sometimes pleasing

to light the set, dress

your actor,

so that they stand out from

the background. Glowing

with self-doubt or some

tremulous sharp inner

pain. In film.

Ash.

for those affected by our Southern California wildfires.

On Wednesday we all wear
ash from palm fronds
and good clothes with
our heads down full of
wishes. I thought:

that some day some big
wind will come and blow us
away to some place good and
painless like mylar balloons
our tails tangled up together

dancing against
that big blue
no clouds ever
sky. We will eat

cake together.

Overgrown.

We did not know how
to stop it. Once it got growing
it kept right on growing, vines
cracking like Indiana Jones whips

overtaking our duplex where we
lived in at least modest comfort and slithering

under chairs, our rugs
pulling the dogs when we were not
looking, especially on the eating-holidays
like Christmas Eve when we lost Max and
Thanksgiving when we lost Mister

Belvedere. By New Years time we were some kind of
sideshow on account that the neighborhood gentry assumed
we were some kind of Mister Brainwash installation or else

an agressive conservation movement. They gathered up on our
front lawn like carollers to behold the great
big green thing
coming up and out
from our windows and our doors and beneath our foundations,

with the most beautiful silken leaves running
with crimson streaks, big and
wide and proud like red blisters
badges for courage or war
paint for some small victory finally
struck.

whover composed Beowulf

sold us all a crock. Especially that

end. I tell

ya.

how long can we keep feeding

boys stories of slaying dragons and expect 

them to know themselves in any less than hateful

way? if we keep insisting

the only glory is to kill

something. dragons are lies.

the men in my family test

their own metal.

they die

of heart failure. Never dragons.

A fly on the lip
of a coffee cup An alley filling
with snow A dead channel

runs your favorite finale–an
end you had sworn

you had almost
forgotten

Swing

In between the beer and

the pitch. The tension for any

one who cares and those who

do not, here at Dodger heaven and

a perfect view of the diamond. 

we discuss phantoms. Then—

the snap just as I hear you 

tell me some places are time machines.

P A TT E R N (over Portrait of A Lady by Henry James)

At dawn, dreams age fast.
The past and dreaming becomes–
Vapor at your recall.