DEL MAR DNA

Tell me.

Have you seen the waves

With their white veils

Breaking

Over the turning earth?

And what did you think

It meant?

Was it just water

Listening to its DNA

Or was it

The shy moon

Hiding behind the clouds

Sending rolling thunder
To your front door.

NEW MASS

Like a memory from my Catholic childhood,

The white Eucharist is held aloft

between the Lutheran pastor’s fingertips and thumb.

I remember this, I think, it’s the body and blood of

Christ, offered for you.  It’s no different here,

It seems, even after all these years. My eyes

meet the pastor’s and he repeats his script, word

For word, as Father Jim used to say it in the 80s

At Our lady of Grace, and Father Gold did at 

St. Michael’s ten years before, right after my Cathechism.

The Lutheran Pastor holds out the host

And I open my hand, just like then, the palm up,

ready to receive. Back in the pew, my head is bowed,

and I cross myself clandestinely, so as not to offend.

I take the Christ inside me. 

I sit for a moment, quietly, and then I start 

to ask for things for which I have no right to ask.

TEVYE DOES COMMUNITY THEATER

Every family onstage had a history, a narrative

That undulated through their hands and fingers like

the tassels of a prayer shawl. Within the

space of a few hours, the audience watched

a handful of Tevye’s five daughters

run off and gotten married to the neighborhood boys.

And when he sang “If I Were a Rich Man,”

he brought the house down, even in rehearsal.

At the end, The Constable evicted

The townspeople from their village.

But he wasn’t a bad guy. He was just doing his job.

The exodus occurred three days later, mournfully,

The displaced carrying their belongings in beat-up suitcases

and worn out bindlesticks made to look even more worn

by the theater magic of the prop girls.

After the show, the choreographer ran off with

One of the other Russian thugs. Their disappearance

Went unmentioned in the review.

HAVE YOU ANY DREAMS YOU'D LIKE TO SELL?

All night the dreams come.

Buried memories of former school days

blended with images from the recent past.

A coach with questionable motives.

A girl who can’t find her class.

At first she’s my blonde daughter, but then

becomes that Muslim girl from last year’s squad 

who was promised to another

and married only days after graduation

in an ancient rite from another time.

Scene change: The athletic fields, tree-lined and green,

Stretch out in my imagination as if forever,

Some kind of fantasy touchdown waiting to happen.

Looking for an open door, we walk around the building,

but find nothing.  I confront the coach,

but lose the girl in the process. I can only hope

she’s in class, ignoring the teacher, Prom-dreaming, 

as she stares at the silver glow of her smartphone.

ANTICIPATING PRYOR, OKLAHOMA

Remember when we gave

each other lines of poetry,

challenging each other

to use them wisely?

We put them in verses

That saved our soul: words pictures

of great lakes, ivory moons,

a rose sitting beside an earring

on a bedside table. Now,

we’re talking about meeting

in the middle of Oklahoma

where we will bring our best words,

our finest lines, and we will share them

like treasure. We will exchange our

poems with each other as we are

out in the world, painting word pictures

in the autumn sunlight. And then, later,

more closely and quietly, we will

trade our most sacred themes and images

and write a new story, even until
the brightest stars burn out.

HALLELUIAH - A BALBOA PARK STORY

I’m going to sit under this tree

Today and listen to the birds for awhile.

I won’t make any money.

I’m going to watch the children

From the camp scamper around the lawn

During their recess as the teenaged counselors

Try to corral them like the wayward kittens they are. 

Give me a moment here. 

I will close my eyes. 

I will breathe slowly.

I will try to be happy for a while.

Is that a Leonard Cohen song in the distance,

ringing from the bell tower to tell me

It’s noon?  I make a mental note to call 

the park when I get home and ask. 

I snooze for awhile, listening to the nearby busker

singing soft rock on his guitar. In a few minutes,

I will walk over, drop a couple bills in his case.

What would it take to walk away from pain I wonder?

How do I spend my days far from

The Disciplinarian’s reach, simply searching

For the moment? Part of the answer, I think,

Is here in the garden by the pond. My head

Against this trunk, my eyes on the clouds overhead.
And even if the answer isn’t here, it still won’t be so bad.

ON READING "YOU ARE A BADASS" BY JEN SINCERO

I want to be a badass.

I want to make a shit ton of money.

I want to maim the doubting that threatens me

and murder

The insecurity that burns in my gut

Like a dumpster fire.

I want to make things happen.

I want to be a badass.

I want to make love to The Law Of Attraction

Until it begs me to stay.

I want to be a badass.

I want to meditate until my head splits

Like a melon and all of the secrets

Of The Universe spill out

like so many seeds.

I want to be present in the moment,

love myself, act as if, tap into the Motherlode,

 see the end of the noxious noise of FOMO.

I want to be a badass.

I want to learn that as long as I sit here reading,

I won’t be anything. I want to learn

that it’s about not wanting

and waiting, but execution.

It’s about the doing. It’s about

The doing. It’s

About the

Doing.

LISTENING TO BLUES ROOTS (ODE TO YESTERDAY)

ike turner 

is on the box

teaching me 

about the roots

of the blues. 

he talks 

about tacks 

in his shoes

& how broken-hearted he is

because 

his baby is gone. 

when I write poems

on a typewriter 

& listen

to ike 

on the 

turntable

it’s like 

it’s yesterday again.

sometimes 

it’s right to do things

the old way.

sometimes it’s 

the only thing

that makes 

any sense at all.

ALCATRAZ IN MY REARVIEW MIRROR

What is a moon now, I think, if it’s not from North Beach?

Does it still matter in the scheme of things? It wasn’t that long ago

I was using words to feel San Francisco, but those days

are over now, along with all of the romance associated with those hills.

Today, it’s all obligation and responsibility

a bill that needs to be paid with an empty wallet, nothing

in my pocket for lint and hope. It’s calmer to look away,

to pretend things are better than they are. It gives you a

sense of peace and you don’t miss the past as much, even though

you know those days are gone for good. 

Luna has the same root word as “lunacy,” I’ve heard. . .

Sometimes if I look just so,

I can still see the lights over the bay, the shores of Alcatraz

looking nothing like the prison it once was. 

UNIVERSITY AVENUE SINS

When I consider my sins

I’m usually listening to the radio

in a dusky room or sometimes

I am driving on a lonely highway,

the road unwinding in front of me

like a song--verse, chorus, verse,

bridge, and then the ending notes

that always seem so final.

As the next tune begins, I am still

thinking of my transgressions,

and delineate them, bead by bead,

on the abacus in my heart.

Other nights, though, a local band plays

its typical set list in a dive bar

on University Avenue, and as I sip a cheap beer,

my missteps fade.  Yes, even as I dance,

I am amused that I was ever worried

and I laugh at how much about the world

still mystifies me and how,

as one poet said, I am always trying

to figure out what the soul is,

and how love works

Or if it even does. . .