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. . .