February 2025

New Work 2/2025 (Updated 2/20)

Sometimes They Come Back

So that Friday morning I’m meditating over the Pork Chops engrossed in Meat Section of Save-Somewhat and gradually I become aware of a figure standing next to me at my right elbow.

He was this well built dude in his early 40s with a very serious look on his face with piercing Akita intense blue eyes. Clearing this dude had specific business on his mind.

He spoke-

You probably don’t remember me but I was a student of yours at the Community College twenty years ago and I came into class late while we were having a test and you ripped into me in front of class sarcastically saying that you were so glad I could make it and how the world was not waiting for me and how come everybody else here came in on time and just who the hell I thought I was sauntering in here when you felt like it.  

There was a silence-

I had been out drinking the night before and barely even made it to class at all thinking I was doing the right thing dragging my hung-over ass out of bed to walk into the classroom.

There was another silence-

I shrugged and told him- So….are you going knock my block off ?

No he told me- This is a good thing,

You changed my life that morning. I was so ashamed by that public humiliation that I decided right then and there to turn my life around.

He didn’t elaborate.

But continued-I see you at the Robo Mini-mart all the time getting butts  gas and the paper. You look right through me.

You don’t remember any of this do you ?

I shook my head not fulling convinced a sucker punch was on deck any minute- Then the PA overhead would announce -Clean up in Aisle 13- bring a mop.

My turn- Well I do remember I had a real smart-ass mouth in those days and was lucky somebody never took me down a peg as I had this mountain lion mouth with a Hummingbird ass. Not proud of that. However was also teaching at the local county jail at that time and was very aware about the situation in there, knew better that I  needed  to reel that sort of horseshit back in. Run into a few ex-cons around town and never had a problem.

Thinking I learned more in there about people then I ever taught.

He still had that frozen blue intense glare laser Bullseyes expression.

Then he said-

I want to thank you.

Shaking my head I told him-

Well thank you- you just made my day

-still feeling a bit embarrassed and very lucky.

I asked his name -we shook hands and he moved off-

I looked down Lamb Chops thinking-

Man that guy could have told me off and cleaned my clock

And you know in a way ?

He just did.   

VQ 2/6/25

Fahrenheit 451in the 90272

Burn my Nation’s Toes  
Burn my 3rd uncle
Burn his books
Burn his shoes
Cook the leather
Put it on me
Does it fit me or you?
It looks tight on you  (Eno)

The City of Angles is burning

Whipping Sparks from Prometheus fire

Lucifer’s revenge for his lost singed Wings

Another Day

Another Ground Zero

 twice the size of Manhattan

Fricasseed neighborhoods

Skeleton Block after bone yard block that recall nightmares past

Dresden Hiroshima London during the Blitzkrieg

Micro burst Holistic napalm  

Charred down to the protoplasm and Bone

All artifacts incinerated

We leave the earth as we arrived with nothing

No more Beach House

No more possessions

No more pictures of grandkids on the refrigerator door

Gone-

The High School were they poured pig blood of Carrie

Will Rodgers ranch

William Randolph Hearst favorite motel

Even The Bunny Museum

Yet that Hollywood sign remained fireproof aloof

Gil-Scott Heron said it ain’t nothing but a movie

Just plain next store folks in a Netflix disaster series

Who lost everything you can stream it all compete

On your TV  Your Phone Your Computer

From a safe disconnected distance shaking your head saying

Terrible now that’s a damn shame

And then log on to your Insta-idiot account

For some oldies

 Zappa sing it can’t happen here-

Billy Joel We didn’t start the fire

Talking Heads Burning down the house

Steely Dan Babylon Sisters shake it while here come those

Santa Anna winds again

Eno Baby’s on Fire better throw her in the water

All in Bowie Ashes to ashes-

 Much like we will be-

Remember Man thou art Dust

And until Dust you shall return

What keeps me up at night ?

We have a retread Teflon president with the launch codes

Ray Bradberry’s

Fireman in the White House

And when Dorthay Parker’s Fresh Hell calls

We will be put on hold

Please enjoy the nostalgic music

I just want to know

Like we all do

How’s it gonna end Tom Waits

As the next shit hits the fan firestorm

While we discover whether

He can put the fire out

Or pour his ego gasoline on it

And we are all Fired

VQ 1/31/24

Give them Short Dog Jello

What you need to do

(-while listening to Miles Davis

 on a late January Sunday afternoon)

1^st off

Boil some water

You’ll need it

To make some purple Jello

(remember to stir thoroughly)

Next-

Get out

That cold extra rare roast

Beef left over in refrigerator

From last night

And a couple of big eyes

Swiss cheese slices

Slice the RB thin

On the wooden cutting board

Then paint Pollock

With juice red blood

Seeing all the faces your father

Taught you to spot

As a kid.

Terrible Now

Crack a cold Miller High Life

Get on the Camel

And step back

Frank O’Hara

Might have said-

He wrote in Soy Sauce

All Horse Reddish

3/20 updated 2/6/22

You on Ice

*

So I’m sitting out in the garage again
having another nervous breakdown
in black and white February Sunday
afternoon and it’s all pretty boring
and there is sound of dripping icicles
from the roof that having dagger like
razor teeth grinning at your emotional
illness and sweating drop after drop
of Crocodile tears that nobody is buying.

So I’m sitting out in the garage again
having the same nervous break down
using the snow banks outside the side door
as beer refrigerators. Each tall neck bottle
loaded in a snow cone slot like a 12 ounce
ordinance on ice.

So I’m stilling out in the garage again
trying to out run another nervous breakdown
by retrieving and detonating the barley grenade
while the snow clings like white wire filings
of cotton to the neck on the bottle.

That’s the good thing about
having another nervous breakdown
while sitting out in the garage on
a black and white February Sunday afternoon.

No need to buy ice to keep the beer cold.
And you too.

You on Ice.

                         -Sometime Grief 2012

*

Heart Attack Snow

*

Shovel by shovel
load after load
that heavy white
icy mush
adds up
and then one morning
you take another scoop
to drop at the curb
and the weight just
tips the scales
to unbalance
between what you thought you could still do
and just what that thought is going to cost you.

So like a switch with a short
or light bulb whose time
has come to black out.

You do.
Your current over-amps
that runs your engine
clogs, gags
and down you go into the snow
then somebody shovels you up
and drops you at the curb.

-Sometimes Grief 2012

1/23/2010