If Hilary Calls ...

I sit, my phone

between my legs

on vibrate so I moan

a little, and clutch

the wheel tighter

to steer

California’s pavements

hoping Hilary Clinton will call.

She never

asks for advice,

not from me,

and my

commando thighs.

We hope, my testicles and I,

for naked questions

on common sense

and public weal,

but when cells buzz,

a zigzag fantasy

swirls incestuous

tones across

my cousin’s voice.

Hilary will not call,

but there is the phone,

waiting patiently to buzz

against my scotum,

announcing scandal

and technological doom

with a gratifying hum.

Chalk Outline

Chalk outline

around thoughts

of destruction,

quietly, a body lays

as if sleep

came unexpected

in an empty room

redolent with antique

dreams.

a musty schoolroom,

and dangerous children

chant ring-around-the-rosie

from walls papered

with lessons still echoing

blood-spattered screams.

outside, cold fog

owns a night

haunted by incautious prey;

hungry predators

spin vague light

into futures too old

for innocence.

in such a room

who will find

this corpse?

Taxi

Lettered signs said Driver carries

no more than $20.00 in change

I fell inward toward smells of pizza

and beer and vomit and the elderly

Looking in his rearview, the driver

caught my eye and a stubborn look

said, “where to?” and I thought

and thought before a joke arose.

“Heaven if possible.” I smiled.

“Another smart ass,” he shook his head,

“But if you’ve got the blunt,

I’ll drive across the continent.”

Of course I thought he said “a blunt”

but he didn’t and I didn’t and he clicked

the meter downward till it said “$$$$$$”

and he repeated, “where to?”

Caretaker

Caretaker at Star’s End,

         He wanders rough paths

through an empty ruin,

         where humans once played.

He invents new methods

         to torture his fellow

beings with machines,

         both mechanical

and bestial,

         without benefit.

No unclaimed bone lies

         exposed, each grave

an open case, derelict

         even of memorial stone.

His eye may rest here and there

         against rusty relics of motion,

but no breeze stirs these ruins

         and no spirit leaves a track.

THE END and The End

Morning sun strikes

         deep inside my eye.

I awaken to scratch,

         and the heat within

another night,

         having passed,

solidifies this joy.

         I survive

another dream.

There are questions

         which is greater joy

where pelicans form

         a homeward line

toward that lascivious fog

         groping Pedro Point,

or late afternoon whitecaps

         painted by Parrish

on a sea as green

         as your eyes.

My chest swells

         beyond capacity of breath.

Election Season

that crow posing

atop that power pole

stares at the western sea

random feathers lift

on horizon’s breath

an onshore breeze

pushing

a marine layer

over blue ice plant,

red poker plants,

and a coastal cypress leaning

drunkenly across ruins

of civilization.

his kind

flew here before people,

pulling clams

with a knife-like beak

from salty wet sand

to scavenge the tide line.

Why I Hated College

everyone except me

fell asleep in anthropology

from a prof in love

with the sound of his voice

once he asked a question

so I answered, waking everyone

no one in French class

wanted to learn French

they took French

because Mexicans speak Spanish

and they never

liked Mexican music

the English prof

made an office appointment

for me but instead he

went to lunch with a student

bragging about gay graffiti

he wrote on bathroom walls

but didn’t like English

a theater prof assigned

a girl and I to do outdoor mime

where strangers threw rocks

at us because everyone

hates mimes

when I got an A grade

in algebra and was surprised

because I didn’t know how