Dango

Chicks

The eggs were lined up and he showed me,
at first I couldn`t believe it, the proper way
of pressing down with a large slab of uncut marble
cracking the shell gentle, then peeling off
a persimmon orange layer of gunk, revealing
a chick in all its glory, individual and patient,
ready for adoption, repeating this process
I lined them up, though soon I was confronted
with a chick-monster, oversized, no eyes or mouth,
I asked my friend for permission to bash it lifeless
with the marble in my hand, he shuddered, but I
said there was no other way... it was not the
chick exemplar the parents had ordered--
I flushed it down the toilet, considerately.

In 1965

The apartment wooden, a little rickety
for earthquakes , but appealing in
the bright sea-fronted air, overshadowed by
the recent concrete apartment next door,
the street outside busy, bright flags of
a Chevy dealership across the street
and the whafes of a taqueria
around the corner

there were five of them or six at times,
it wasn`t clear who was living there
of course there were those who
watched the TV and those who didn`t,
those who washed dishes and those
who didn`t

The landlady at the apartments next door
recalls she offered a room to one of them
cause he was spanish, or part, she herself
from an old California-Mexican family,
she saw them all as boys, though some
well into their twenties, drinking beer or wine
on the deck, in the sun, she had little to do
but sit and watch from above like a peering bird,
their girlfriends, generally blonde, their conversations
well, a little odd

Nixon always making his funny speeches,
with which she half agreed, the Pinto one of them
bought, modified engine, rumbling to a start or stop
late at night, and the kind of joy she felt when she
watched them, a kind of family of children
in a playground, so different from
the salary-bound tenants before,
she recalls the guitars ragged and accoustic that
would fade in the wind and reach her in snatches
of improvised joy and sadness.

The Karaoke Hut Memorial Blast

We were driving through the country, to a hut
farmers use to sell vegetables, except
this one had a soundproof glass door,
inside a recording console and
two guitars that were japanese style
short brooms with the bristles feathery
and all fanned out.

One had two strings, rubber bands really
and the other a full set of four and when I played
something like a chord magically came out through
the rounded handle

the hut had expanded
into something of a roadside restaurant and we
lounged, I don`t recall we ate anything,
what really caught my eye was the collection of
Tin Tin comics, including one with a new cover,
on closer inspection an old story containing
a few pages of new panels, this has happened to me
twice in dreams

we were off scuttling across the country
the hills ablaze with I thought houses,
turned out to be scarlet flowers, whole hillsides
and a forested garden with arched wooden bridge,
memorial to lives lost in atom blast

Running West

I was planning, then on a trip
but had forgotten basic things
like cell phone charger and keys,
lucky Darren was there to lend his

then I was in the dark city, it was quiet
I was walking with her, the unnamed lover
touching her breasts finally, her hips
feeling guilty

then drag racing down Roppongi-Dori,
more spectacle than driver, the Evil Knievel
easyrider burnt rubber feeling as I went down
a long hill of distinctively japanese buildings
that suddenly ended in long fields of green,
I did see a man in old garb of blue robes
holding his sword like a sythe, menacing and
finally a turquoise sea full of tropical
sea creatures, most of them from a can,
she explained this was a royal hideout
on the isolated peninsula Ise, not far
from some original Shinto shrine

where my uncle Roger had a beachfront house
worth cool millions, there was a dinner party
featuring some of my closest relatives, I forget
their names, we played a scavenger hunt type game,
I found myself imitating Neil Young in vain attempt
to gain points as all this pointless wealth
colored me with basic envy.

unrequited love, revisited

she was there before me, the girl
I mean really vivid, at first
I was in a dorm room sent to meet John F. K.
and another, shapely, blonde (Monroe?)
it was the scoop of a lifetime and outside,
sitting nonchalant Frank Gifford, fingering
his moustache, ear turned to see what crumbs
he could gather, though he was careful
not to entangle himself directly

later, at a cafeteria table, with a diverse
gang from school yards past, black, latino
wondering why I didn`t sit with the private school kids
over there, good natured ribbing
though leaving the table I returned to find
money being waved wildly in the air, wallet by my plate,
I collected it all in my best third grade manners
Coercively, with a tug and a headlock and an elbow
thrown here and there

finally went with Kim`s mother
to her house, located on the shaded, woody street
near my old elementary school, and chatted with her
realizing the girl I had fallen in love with
so long ago, pestered with a thousand calls
was very rich, the daughter of Frank Gifford,
Who, dark, muscular, mustachioed
was not only intrepid reporter
but Major Hollywood Player
soon to be featured in a movie that had him
in a speedboat, with guns

As we waited in the kitchenette we chatted
and I revealed my identity with much apprehension,
her mother laughed and said oh you were
the best of the bunch, don`t punish yourself too hard,
and memories poured in of school day crushes,
warm like sunshine, a picture of the seeker
I`d been and still might fundamentally be

Then she was there half-latin, all angel
giving me a look of emotion, trust or mistrust
as she hurried down the stairs, I was left gasping
in the kitchen, sparked alive by her eyes
ready to give anything-- my wallet, my life

Houses

They center around a house generally dark
or dimly lit, sometimes it is the house
in which I used to babysit, in the forested hills
with the downstairs sofa and small TV
I`d sit and thumb books with the kind of
listless nudity that could only ever interest
a teenager

Other times it`s in the two story beach house
of my old Lithuanian landlord, I rented the bottom,
I find a trap door that goes down and down
and is full of 70`s mementos
old car and driver magazines, knicknacks
and eurokitsch accessories

Often it is a dark house that I can`t get out of,
alone and somehow dead if I am caught
I hide and jump at sudden noises
and wonder when it stops,
it can`t be a nightmare exactly,
I wake briefly and then I`m out
trying to reach that place again,
trying to figure it out.

in the quiet woods

I was back in the shady forest, at a level spot
not far from a creek among the smoky leaves,
I had built a hut along the side and was snug
and content, though missing my mother

The lone hermit I might well have become
playing my accoustic through the days
and dreaming of sandy haired women

living among the detritus of forest
feeling a yearning now and then, though
nothing that a good ponder at the stars
and a sit by the fire couldn`t ease

visiting Jack

A mild mannered girl,
maybe attractive auburn hair but
no beat, not like Jack, around
the time when his reputation began
to exceed performance, breathless
I ran up the stairs of the apartment complex
looking for his door, and knocking was
greeted by a surly growl

Opening the door, a surprisingly normal guy
apologetic in his best beat manners
handsome in a rebellious mid-30`s
alcoholic way, and there were two others,
one a cat-like girl, maybe good and close
friend of one or the other

And the other was lets see,
dean moriarity or gary snyder
certainly he wasnt all wild and crazy or
particularly talkative so I`m going to say
snyder, and they were planning a fishing trip
in the mountains, I sat on the bed
petite and demur, guess I wasn`t any kind of
beat at all

slowly I took in Jack
and the honor of meeting him
though now at the outset of his sinking, floating
years where the original rebellion was at odds with
the forces of age and gravity

reclining in a deck chair in the kind of old beat
apartment that may exist only in San Francisco,
he asked me a semi-serious question like,
did I think he could keep on writing?
sounded like he was flirting, but also
as if he had things on his mind,
had been possibly drinking
before I arrived, and was now trying to put on
his best collegiate, nice guy face
so envoking compassion, even pity

And though I couldn`t have known
he didn`t have much left
that the last years of his life would be abject
and that indeed he would spend most nights
drunk out of his skull, (oh the advantages of hindsight)
I said something that I hoped would encourage him
I forget and

we wound up playing a kind of mad baseball game
in the room with a mop for a bat
and crumpled paper balls
swinging to the blast of some scratchy trumpet.

saving my guitar

I was in the old house, on the woody hill
in Montclair, where so many dreams begin
my guitar, the Norman I bought last summer
had developed a serious case of the bends,
it was buckling and coming apart in so many places
the wood crumbling like beef jerky,
and there in his little workshop a bearded man
a luthier I think, expert
accoustic craftsman made grave diagnosis
with a twinkle in his eye
that led me to believe there might be some hope
he could salvage

we went to work, he and I, taking the damn thing apart
as the house turned into a commuter train
he the conductor, following the jagged
contours of the japanese coastline as we worked on this
thing fitting pieces like a jigsaw puzzle

suddenly emerging from the forested, hilly coast
straight ahead skimming the bay, and winding up at
a nature theme park, I got out with my ticket
asking directions back to Tokyo
in a language no one could understand, maybe english

the train had taken off
my guitar puzzling hero with it
still fighting to save the life of an acoustic
while I wandered around in my usual daze

shipping out

I was cleaning some basement room with
a sexy blonde staff sergeant,
we were under the gun to finish,
we were shipping out tomorrow,
not for war but for something like camp
a big countryside picnic and jamboree.

We were travelling then, they were having spoken word karaoke events on the long vehicle,
I`m not sure if it was a bus or a plane, I didn`t look out the window. They offered some square many-stringed instrument and I offered to play it, only realizing later that I had volunteered, so completely was I into the music,
my zing! electric fingering providing accompaniment for some spoken word recitation by officers, who no longer seemed officers but accomplished teachers, poets and the like.

As I got deeper into the groove I realized that something was out of control, seriously awry,
someone came over and pointed out that each string had a different sound, a different tuning and that to learn them all would be an open ended affair involving a bargain with the devil.

I would have taken him up on this, sure but I couldn`t stop playing, there in the thrall of some great mystery, producing something akin to life.