a summary of the songs and the places

dearest Tony,

you breathe in with toe clenches
exhale in songed escapes
towards lands and faces melancholy
and sweet
as we love them to be

you take us south
and east
and back in time
so we lie on our backs
mouths opening up to
distant shaking stars
breathe in a rumble of
accordions and dust bowls
dark skin, chains
breathe out A major
A plus
we've got an education now

made of eye contact
sustained
branches of flowers on tables
with low lights
and we'll talk about
your painting
poetry
that turn of speech
how it feels
until bedtime

a work song

boom
dolly dolly
zoom
gully gully
slam
man ouch
sham
ham roach
shake
spit fall
itch
crouch, call
run
cry sweat
feel
breathe, and yet

When I am Woody Guthrie, lookin at the boxcar I'm gonna jump in
when I'm singin my train song
facing north
always north, up at the train
tracks laid right to left
like before
my mamas gone crazy
I don't care about money
at least I try real hard

lookin north, no matter
aligns with
earth according to
this witch

earth

faced

Woody

I am Woody
the train's skatin by
I see a particular kind of tree
I know you and
I know me,
friends
rightly

Polish People's Republic

good morning
model my monument
Milosz, a prize
resolve
authorities in front
workers pretend
culture
is with us
engraved
but not the whole thing

spring standoff
officials funny
free Saturday
an army general
Marshall law
nobody paid attention
October
stagnation
the last bus in
ten thousand soldiers
downtown
December
shut off the phones
bugged
his future wife
say something interesting
Easter greetings
not censored
reconsider the army
resistor
march

uniforms, Chopin
things are not good
whatsoever
borders shut curfew
walk the dog during
the evening news
police state on a budget
demonstrate
on holidays
violence on toes
we thought it would
last forever
finally lifted
July
trying to incorporate
game changed
they live brief lives

elections destroyed
you probably voted
daughter
high up, counted
that's her job
political prisoners
found solidarity
strikes
reluctantly
August
the man who put him
in prison negotiated
a round table
legalized underground
elections
a Polish paradox
rigged free elections
fell
execution on
Christmas eve

a house, a senate
nobody showed up
hold your noses
pull back
a Catholic
minister
Tadeusz Mazoweicki
those weren't us
an entity

coat of arms
crown eagle
no crowns in communism
go paint on crowns
badly painted
hatless eagles
let's go back

"there's not supposed to
be anything absurd
in communism"

Dear Mississippi John Hurt,

I wish you were my grandpa. Oh, instead of James, in a trailer park with his third wife, far away so my mom can say "good riddance," what if you were here, alive, plucking, strumming, singing, leaving out words? Your gentleness, you couldn't have caused any such darkness in my mom, a spot she would remember mid-therapy, a pain that would send all of us reeling.
Or perhaps instead of my dad's dad, Arthur, someone I never knew. I heard his voice on tape once, talking, nothing like yours. I don't actually remember how he sounds, but I remember your voice, John Hurt. You wouldn't have been manic, tearing phones off walls, scaring my aunt, terrorizing my dad the way he learned to scarify us. You would have sat in a rocking chair, you would have mentioned the bible, you would have laughed.
Oh John, your lilting, your dancing with guitar strings, I wish that flowed through my veins. Your subtle sneaking to play guitar. We don't know such subtlety in my family. Until my brothers and I snuck out of our house in the middle of the night, we danced with the night, perhaps you were with us then and we just couldn't see.
If only you would take the last of my joint as I take the last of your drink, what if you were here in the attic, what if you were my grandpa, and alive still, and mid-music? Could you be? Could I still be? What if I hadn't felt like I was discovering life on my own? What if growing up I hadn't felt swarmed by hurt, but nurtured by it? What if you had been there? What if I had learned your music earlier?
Oh but you don't give none about this what ifs. You are in my mind in a rocking chair. You laugh and there is no TV set stage, nobody looks at you awkwardly. You take my joint and I take your drink and we smile and know it's okay to go to sleep.

...Oh I Oh...

a painted response to Banks of the Ohio murder ballad:

Darling say that you'll be mine
In our home we'll happy be
Down beside where the waters flow
On the banks of the Ohio

I took her by her pretty white hand
I led her down that bank of sand
I pushed her in where she would drown
Lord, I saw her as she floated down

Down in Ojai

Oh down in the valley
the valley so wide
spreading its hilly legs
Orchards bloom between.
we rest on its tummy,
Meditation Mount
three girls laughing
legs dancing, in place,
a boy with a problem
a grimace
oh the expert of head
hanging banging on
typewriter, worried
hurt, the fruit
between each our legs
ain't for him,
hear the wind blow.

35.

The August sun set heavy, slow steady, as I
braced my basket's bounty with an arm
while carefully climbing the
sidewalk cracks on my way
downhill home. Oh the triumph
walk of a day spent basking in
sunlight, sewing, and trusting
eyes. Sold one notebook-gave
one away-made another notebook
and finished a pencil pouch. The trees
anchored us soil-deep beneath the concrete,
while the other trees burned slowly, entangling
our minds in our hands, our energies
spreading, mixing, wrapping to hold one another.
Amber, Mountain, Talos, Alex, Josh, Hannah White,
these are arounding manifestations of me-we feel
this love in tiredsorefrustrated bodies. The love
holds more than the sidewalks, you know. We could
orbit endlessly.

34. from last summer

It seems like silly irony to name such a place Fiesta Gardens; the low

replicated houses all leaning towards a shade of grey, any gardensparse

and isolated by rectangular slabs of smooth. What is smooth about a garden

except for the momentary petals, leaves, every shape other than rectangle?

And there were no fiestas. The strip mall empty, the park obsolete as children

danced and splashed in their chlorine bath, and I am not interested, too

overwhelmed by the layered cake of stress and need and boredom in which my

family now resides. Max said our furniture looks stupid in the new house: our

armchairs so once-comfortable in our high-ceilinged living room now sweat side-

by-side-by-side in between the laZboy and grand piano. As for me, I sit and

wonder what slow tragedies and great happiness the grey walls are trying to

undo. And why are we trying to unhear each other, I blunder, as the neighbor

says "Sure is quiet at night." The world sure seems far away from Fiesta

Gardens, except for the sky, where the beauty sinks in. For when you have

such a flat land, the power you surrender is vertical, The washes of blues

and pinks and hard stars set up their thrones, and while my father might

worship the artichoke sculpture, my sanctuary is the front step, facing

upwards, not so away as around.



But as usual it is a good morning in Berkeley where everyone speaks the

same language and means different things -- clapping by falling

backwards, passing out in a salvia daze buried crevice betweem

tree branches, we sleep and dream occupy fuck the Beatles, that all

I utmost want is to be holding your hand I want, man and girl and

baby Sam. It's when I know for sure I'm o walking evening Oakland,

numbered signs like a yellow brick (violators be sighted and) toad.

And don't pull out your gun, you don't need it, let's melt it down

into silver balls we hang from trees with brown thread count the soldiers dead,

to afford college. To afford a wallet, a system we've fallen into again,

trading life for a say, when hey, what we say is in our minds.

you run. he walks and i watch

Max and Rory are at the Berkeley house, enjoying the hospitality that is

so uncommon around Burlige.



yo, i like the feelimg ot typing om,,,my bad, on this, makes me feel l

like i h ave something to say

33.

Dear Sugary Figure, making my
eyes smile with the
sweetness of your stance, your
face arrangement, your tighty
whiteys, your karate bow
making my skin melt like
butter, simmering cream
baby, is me pouring into
your mouth - my hip is a
straw drink me, my hands
are spoons digging in, my
vagina is an oven,
let us
bake there

32.

I try to lick myself invisible
in the creek cavern on campus
naked blue statue, pass through
hanging leaves
slip down mud hill
by the water I
breathe fire
hot
dizzy spinny beauty
turny blurry water movement
I dip my toes in
an old man white beard nearby
still, not visible to any authority
creek comrades
not wanna be seen
just setting smoke
wrapping threads
around trees.

31.

and the red earth shovelled in
remembering their color, see
as I fixlie on the grey stones
for Tiger, Tiger's grey stones
the grimace of his dead face
clawing at the attic smoke
my friend, I hope I did
I might someday
understand that I cannot understand
to glorify your memory
celebrating condescending
these are the words I know
to speak with
grey stones
for Tiger
Tiger's grey stones
oh and your possessives mark
your certainty
his memory lays with owning
the stones from the backyard
stones from the earth
stones tucked in by my and my
mothers hands cannot own these
I testify with my
little desk machine
that germinates
anyways, the job remains
testify
you hadsawfelt red earth
I placedhopeddropped grey stones
we meander onwards
keeping these with us

30.

We look at each other
we don't say anything
except pupils become beds to rest on
we don't say anything
your top lip rests its sides on the bottom,
inviting me to lick my tongue
between
I remember
in high school
falling in love with the way you talk
your chin, your lips, these
teeth
dancing for me
oh it has always pulled me
you have always pulled me
more recently, it has been with your hands
the way you talk with them
rolling your wrists, pointing
fingers
as if they are laden with magic
you can't help but weave spells
at each moment

things get complicated
this is not new for us
yet our recipe
of talking seeking understanding
holding then not saying anything
our pupils become each other's beds
(rest in my eyes
they will nourish you)
this recipe feeds us
it will keep us full
I will not go hungry as long
as you know when I'm panic
I will not go hungry
as long as you let me
feed you
we take care of each other
you cook our food
I write you these poems
we both hope they taste right
we both hope to spend the night
as us

29. Vivian

A long life
an end
San Francisco
She was 91.
remain
side-by-side beds simply
there

forget
oceans continents
a new baby
the snow

granddaughters, Kim
Karly
Katie
Kelly
Angela
the East bay

passed
South Dakota
Minnesota
Wisconsin

Across the span
a degree
from University
loving
Henry
on Haight and Divisadero
gave birth to her first child
in World War II
driving
dinner
golf
course home
hosting
for Henry's
friends, Vivian
adopted her husband
and became
great
watch
Joe Montana
golf
on television
a love
story
impossible

ashes in
Bay, joining
Henry in private
this
woman, who cared
as a nurse
wife mother and grandmother
or online at
life leave
and
click

28.

forget that you can
forget
forgetting doesn't even have
a name

it's slickening the slack
until you've got it back
is the name of
what's important.

I'm in my house you are in your
house and outside is a house all its own
since forgetfulness can't come in
the wind's already taken in and we're
smoking
can't you tell he'd be offended?
So I've forgotten your house contradiction
I'm lost keys collecting at the bottom
yet
you're never locked out
not really
ways in while you're sitting still
ways out like unformed connections
I'm gonna head home guys I'm tired time
for bed
and everyone lets out a bit of slack
release this thread
I need my attention
in dreaming tonight

27.

They say the kookaburra
laughs maniacally

my fingers sneak toward holly bush
yanking berry slide
a handful, this
littlest benediction

I like a maniac pray
with berries raining
saffron threads
towards the sidewalk

Fat pollen clumps!
the city's womb!
my earthly delight
as I step
grab
toss