Sunsets

For the story behind this photo please follow this link to my new blog at http://atotalsolidwaste.wordpress.com .

BLOOD MOON

I was out with the wild cats on the night of the "blood moon" taking pictures.  The cats were more interested in the free food that somebody had left them.

 

 

 

 

 

PHOTO ESSAY

How Americans of certain socio-economic persuasions help reduce waste and help make ends meet at the same time: AL cans!

Ending Statement Love of Death 2nd ed.

The last page of the 2nd ed. of For the Love of Death had this statement:



Pondering existence is foolish;
it is much better to live
in the secure knowledge that
when pain stops, someone is through with you.

Death by Dr. Who

I tried to explain about the strange man
in the phone booth,
but nobody would listen.
He nattered about weird stuff:
Pity, now the universe is down
to 699 wonders,
in a Mad Hatter sort of way.
Twenty-five years and
they still look at me queer.
When I was a kid; it was comics.
Alternate universe, alternate issues going
forward in time and back in time.
Now it's Dr. Who.
Talk about social suicide,
talk about Doc at a cocktail party,
you're standing alone in a corner
with an empty glass.
If they don't like the Doctor,
strange isn't in their blood.
And if strange isn't;
where's passion?
Under all that conformity?
Fun counts.

            published in For the Love of Death, the early years, 2nd ed., S.I.N., 1993.

LC Classification

Who says
that the guy who made
up the Library of Congress
system of cataloging
had no sense of humor?
BS is the classification
under which the Bible
is put.

          published in For the Love of Death, the early years, 2nd ed., S.I.N., 1993.

Shaggy Dog

Dead shaggy dog on side
of the road, a mop
that has cleaned too many
floors put out by the garbage.
Nobody comes to take
away the trash.

            published in For the Love of Death, the early years, 2nd ed., S.I.N., 1993.

An Alter

A house spider drops down
upon an alter of hide,
pieces of bone, stone,
clay, bits of shell,
glass, feathers, porcupine quills,
teeth, and antlers.
The thin cable of web
touches the deer hair; it pauses
before continuing to a kill.

            published in For the Love of Death, the early years, 2nd ed., S.I.N., 1993.

A Drop of Rain

There,
on the mantel
where the color of heat
ends,
I put my Buddha:
no place else
for it.

         published in For the Love of Death, the early years, 2nd. ed., S.I.N., 1993.

Bombing Runs

The best way to watch a run
is from a great distance.
At night, those angry balls on the horizon are
like a thunderstorm trapped in the Snake:
sticky blood, sweat, and steel.
You can smell them.
But at treetop level,
moving up,
you can feel that orange cloud
burning your heels,
making them crispy critters.
Friendly fire is a way of life.

               published in For the Love of Death, the early years, 2nd ed., S.I.N., 1993.

The Supermarket

A naked man in the supermarket
would freeze his nuts off.
The owners would in all probability
chop him into meat,
wrap him in plastic, and place
him in the frozen food section.
Of course the soulless matter
would be nutritionally impractical.

            published in For the Love of  Death, the early years, 2nd ed., S.I.N., 1993.

An American Neohaiku

At night on my door step
I watch the chemical trucks run North
the chip trucks run South
chemical trucks North
chip trucks South
there can't be much
left in the North.

           published in For the Love of Death, the early years, 2nd ed., S.I.N., 1993.

Reality

There is something about reality
within a leafless bush.
After winter has enthralled all life,
and leaves it stunned by its departure,
for a brief time you can see
the fields beyond the hedge.
The image is broken by
dark twisted branches, thorny and sharp.
Demons can't hide there.
Earth yields
bright colors which part
dusky soil to taste the sky.
Hills of grasses take on
their first dew, warm noon with simple
ease until weight of frost.
Then the branches sprout life of their
own and muddy the view until fall.

             published in For the Love of Death, the early years, 2nd ed., S.I.N., 1993.

The Poet Who is Never Seen

dedicated to the character of Sabur in Chingiz Aitmatov's play "The Ascent of Mt. Fuji".


Sometimes the living speak, sometimes the dead;
eloquence in a corpse is most becoming
when you figure the thousands who walk
about with ghosts inside them, never speaking
or hearing any more than what has been said before.
Shadows that have so much effect that they
never have to step out on the stage.
Invisibles that are all around us,
inside us.  They have spoken and been
captured on a page, awakening and animating
what seems empty.  They fill up countless
lives with the lives of a few.
Watching, watching, always feeling what
is out of step and out of understanding.
In the turmoil they are apart but
burning brightly.  So brightly that they
actually become their own ghosts
which haunt us while they still live.
Giving everything inside for the future
leaves nothing for the future, nothing
even in the present but watching
the great work unfold as the world
changes.  Winter on the taiga is bad.
The white-death is all around and
prison is more than wire and a
bullet can expunge.  It is
fear that in the death, pain,
misery you will lose the choice of
dream; the fear you will forget how.
It is more than can be killed.
Even among the sameness of days
there can be a uniqueness in people
which makes them live; it is the
kind of ghost they choose.  It causes others
to live harder in the image of
someone they did not even know.
Hardness in winter is wrapped up in
anything which will keep one warm.
It keeps the man-made barriers
up so the taiga won't swallow the
soul, and so doing find out how
free it truly is.  The wire keeps
the infection of spirit from spreading.
Night and memories cause the
stones to roll down the mountain
into the dark.  Like the cracking
and building of the torrents of spring-thaw,
they create new signs of life.
New sins teach the winter-death
passes into spring as a
memory of word without meaning.
The reality is much more consuming
in its nature.  Iron-bellied men who
live on the edge of the forest take
second place to the feel, taste,
smell of the earth.  The touch of another
person's flesh isn't a memory
or a hidden thing.  It throws off
the furs of winter and lives because
of an unseen memory which kept it
warm.  Friends wouldn't be what they are
if they had not met in the past.
Their nature is wrapped up in every action
taken, every dream spoken.
They are changed by the specter of
friends who are not there.
The nature of the spoken word,
the fact of spell in poetry,
magic is the beauty of creating new
at the expense of a moment lost,
in the whirl of springs remembered.
For all the dreary
parts of the poet, the human becomes
the least of all burdens.  It at
least dreams the simple dream freely.
This the ghost in us all: betrayed
of what could have been for all
those who will hold both the ghost
and what is memory.  They
are the ones who will never be seen
except as a train standing off
in the distance; who the passengers
are is never known.  And they in turn,
while sitting on the train
will look out, never knowing who
was watching.  Each will only feel
the faint shadows of the words
spoken before the headstones
in the graveyard on the hill.
They linger in the air unheard.
Rails stretching off into the distance,
built by the hands beneath the ground,
are covered by the same snow which
falls on the hill.  Both are glorified
by the wild flowers in spring.
When it comes to the hearts of people,
each is affected by the other.
If the words were spoken,
they live with the daemon who walks in each.

              published in For the Love of Death, the early years, 2nd ed., S.I.N., 1993.

Statements

The world has been filled with statements.
We have forgotten the allusion
behind the illusion of each dust
choked word.  Where are the visions?
Trees moving as a laundry of silk,
painted colors in the wind
drawing back each upon the other.
They reveal the shadows that hold them
to the earth.  Yet the air is
there, shifting in hue and form,
exposed by each branch in motion,
each leaf swirled by the wind's
maelstrom of canvass sky.
The cloths and tapestries overlap forever.

                  published in For the Love of Death, the early years, 2nd ed., S.I.N., 1993.

Bar Conversation

"Do you want
company for the rest of the night?
I do, just coffee and talk,
that sort of thing.
I really could use it."

We were both pretty far gone.

"Well, what are we doing?
I'm drinking coffee,
your drinking beer.
We're talking."

"Sure, ok."

She was gone within a quarter
of an hour.  I guess
the interest wasn't there.

                 published in For the Love of Death, the early years, 2nd ed., S.I.N., 1993.

Bushido

The beast within us
is one we will never know,
but we are the same.

From the core we take.
It once was a useful whole,
now a sharper flake.

The breath of a sigh
outward from a falling chest
makes room for a scream.

Swords in the field teach
of the lungs, stomach, spleen;
what is in a man.

Off the shiny blade's
skin a candle flame reflects,
twin lights in the dark.

                published in For the Love of Death, the early years, 2nd ed., S.I.N., 1993.

Shape-shifter

If there is a price, I'll pay the fee.
A bargain in words to water a seed,
and draw down the moon from forgotten tree.

I'll sit in my house with pipe and my tea
doing arcane acts on a floor strewn with reeds.
If there is a price, I'll pay the fee.

There is always The Quest to find some key.
I'm waiting around for some form of need
to draw down the moon from forgotten tree.

The murky ruler of the wine dark sea,
would I worship him to share in The Deed?
If there is a price, I'll pay the fee.

Follow the Tao?  It's all one to me.
Let the yin and yang explain basic need
to draw down the moon from forgotten tree.

The death of all symbols might set me free
from masters of form and all of their creed.
If there is a price, I'll pay the fee,
and draw down the moon from forgotten tree.

                   published in For the Love of Death, the early years, 2nd ed., S.I.N., 1993.

Halley's Comet

I was reading a newspaper somewhere
about some scientists feeling concern
over all the light pollution.  We burn
off enough light to make the comet rare.
This was kind of hard for me to bear.
Most of my life I've waited my turn
to see what Twain was born under return.
In general people don't seem to care.
I once met what I took for an old bum
standing and looking up at the street lamps.
He said you can't see stars in the city.
The only place that you can see stars from
is back in the alley shadows.  He camps
back there, watching stars, needing no pity.

                published in For the Love of Death, the early years, 2nd ed., S.I.N., 1993.

Litany for the Dying

Out there they are burning a stubble field.
The streets of town are filled with smoke.
The forests are on fire, and our fate is sealed.

Sun bloody coin, the smoke will not yield.
They are farmers of clay, just old plain folk.
Out there they are burning a stubble field.

Machines are the physicians, many lives reeled.
The pulse is weak, breath shallow, spirit broke.
The forests are on fire, and our fate is sealed.

Torch all the stubble, it's not there to shield
the life of a mouse, the soil to cloak.
Out there they are burning a stubble field.

Everything green the oxen have peeled,
faithless the gifts of wheel, harness, and yoke.
The forests are on fire, and our fate is sealed.

A child cries with hope to be healed
from nightmares and dreams which never are spoke.
Out there they are burning a stubble field;
the forests are on fire, and our fate is sealed.

                published in For the Love of Death, the early years, 2nd ed., S.I.N., 1993.

R & R

I see bubbles in the future!

     Just like in the kitchen, with writing there is prep-work on the side.  I like to call it R & R, Rest and Research.  We become greater than the sum of our parts. 

First Snow

. . . five-teen and walking
the "Quad" at the "U",
first winter in Michigan.
Ann Arbor has a body of water between
it and Hell.  My body felt
snow falling, flurry white,
for the first time.
It was cold on my face,
but I was warm in the pea-jacket
and watch-cap my father bought me.
White ice on blue
wool is still very real,
very physical to me.
It is that
kind of snow that makes it
winter, and remembering the first touch
of a beauty that can kill.
It washes away the years
between what I was,
what I am.

          published in For the Love of Death, the early years, 2nd ed., S.I.N., 1993.

Primate Behavior

1. Once bitten, twice bitten.
2. It doesn't matter what you do, you're going to live forever.  So try and get it right.
3. What ever you do, it's going to stay with you.
4. There is no rule book, but that doesn't mean there are no rules.
5. There are lots of lies, lots of truths.
6. If you didn't have fun the first time, chances are you won't the second.
7. If you're not having fun, give it up and find something else.
8. A woman can teach, a man can learn, but an asshole just process' shit.
9. Enjoy it now, you might not be able to later.
10. Support promiscuity, spread it around and cut down the population.
11. Support abstinence, help stamp out the human race.

                 published in For the Love of Death, the early years, 2nd ed., S.I.N., 1993.

AIDS

They cursed Spokane; I laughed.
Don't fuck with the gypsies.
Of course it wouldn't take much.
I know what Power is,
but why work any harder than
you have to.  It's America after
all.  I've read Mark Twain;
I know what good, old-fashioned,
Yankee know-how can do to a brace
of knights.  Funny thing though,
the one spell that worked
sent the bastard back.  To Hell
with all Yankees in America.
Love it or leave it!
I will love it and leave it when
the stupid thing won't come after
me and hunt me down.
One and a half million cases
of AIDS in the country,
who says gypsy curses don't
work?

                   published in For the Love of Death, the early years, 2nd ed., S.I.N., 1993.

Reservoirs

They stud the skylight
waiting for somebody to twist
a spigot.  They wall the v
in hills to make lakes.
Water wombs, water wangs,
turn on and flush
shit and piss out
of the toilets of America.
Sun and storm wash paint,
fade the colors at dawn or
evening.  It takes all
the many shapes spilling
over town to grow.
Confluence, affluent:
who cares if
the water is tainted
when the source itself is
so filled with rot
gathered inside for ages.
The putridity of the human
spirit is purged by flesh:
flesh in contact with water,
water of the world,
the world and her wonder.
Sometimes, when the stink is
too much, I have to walk
out to the edge and touch
a water-tower.  It is cool, even
in the heat of day.  I look out
from there to what is
beyond.

                    published in For the Love of Death, the early years, 2nd ed., S.I.N., 1993.

Older

Do you know how I can tell
that I'm getting old?
I can't set a dime on edge
at the bar anymore.
Sure, a nickel, but
not a dime.
Too much time, too many drugs.
And there is the shooting.
Take a fifty foot target
92 and above is an A.
Four years ago
I could do that.
In fact, I did.
Today, all over the board.
Ooops!
Fuck me royal!
Just set up 3 dimes
in a row!

             published in For the Love of Death, the early years, 2nd ed., S.I.N., 1993.

Pissing in the Wind

I have heard
that changing the diapers of young
men is a hazard.
They piss hard
in your face.
Perhaps that is why
I had a daughter.
The older I get,
the more I feel like the trunk
of an old tree
in a world of dogs.
Too many of my breed
don't mellow with age,
or learn to govern
their stream.

             published in For the Love of Death, the early years, 2nd ed., S.I.N., 1993.

The Good Shepherd

Shepherd, Shepherd
kill your sheep,
hang them in the shop to eat.

If in winter
you wish to be warm,
fleece them, you are forewarned.

Sleep protected from the wolf,
the fence is strong ...
a fancy in pastoral song.

                    published in For the Love of Death, the early years, 2nd ed., S.I.N., 1993.

A Creed

By profession I am a pornographer,
I look for the perfect orgasm in lines.
By love I am a poet,
I touch things with my mind.
My religion is sorcery,
I am woven into my world.
My life is eternal,
but I have forgotten what I was
and what I will be.

               published in For the Love of Death, the early years, 2nd ed., S.I.N., 1993.

Lawyer Lady

Hey lover . . .
why will we never touch?
Doom is out there.
In a billion years the sun
will fade into itself
leaving worlds to wander
for themselves.  A little sooner,
a peaceful death in bed
may come.  Violent death,
surprise makes life interesting.
Is it despair or boredom?
What do you feel which makes
you work those fingers bloody raw?
Fry your brain over books? 2n
Blind yourself on small print
and worry?  You certainly aren't
looking for joy.
I'm only looking
for jollies anymore.  That long spiral
to Hell or Heaven isn't worth it.  The End
will catch me soon.  I'd like
to take a few pleasures
in the moist scents and flavors
you put out along the way.
Up or down, over or under,
through.
Which ever way is fine
with me.  We might rest
for a moment, . . . no more.

                   published in For the Love of Death, the early years, 2nd ed., S.I.N., 1993.

For the Love of Death, the early years: Comments

     When I published the second edition of this collection, I broke it into sections that seemed relevant in some way.  The sections are Obsidian, Chert, Flint, Cores, and Flakes.  These are all stages of finding artifacts in lithic technology.  If you ever find a copy of this collection, you can see if the section titles fit the poems in them.  Poetry is similar to making stone tools, but does not require as much blood, mostly . . .
     Most of the material that is in this volume was written well before 1993, so it is very young, and very experimental.

Vending Machines

After three or four days without sleep
there isn't anything I like to do better
than walk up to a Pepsi machine
whistling Coke is the real thing.  Then
I sit down with my back to a concrete
wall and try to decide.  Usually, I
wind up just staring at the sucker.
It's hard to find a machine with bottles.
They're all aluminum cans.  So why the fuck
do they have a bottle opener on the front?
I know the first thing that I do
when I come home from the store with
a six pack of bottles is to go out
and look for a vending machine.

It's a Pepsi generation, coming at you, growing strong.
Pepsi Cola hits the spot, twelve full ounces, that's a lot.
It really is a lot if you're on a space shuttle.
Sixteen million and the damn toilet
still doesn't work.  Hey, pull over to the next bush,
I got to take a leak.

Little plastic rectangles for maybe seven selections,
orange light, make another.
I don't want another.
Correct change only, but I don't have it.
Shit!  There has to be a better way.
This is why cotton costs more than synthetics;
after three or four days without sleep,
people sit alone in concrete corridors
bathed in the glow of a machine.

                     published in For the Love of Death, the early years, 2nd ed., S.I.N., 1993.

Apocalypse

The Horn blew; the Horsemen came.
A child was trampled as they passed.
On so little was it sent to hell.

                   published in For the Love of Death, the early years, 2nd. ed., S.I.N., 1993.

The Mathematical Explanation of Why I Don't Have a Tan

There are 7 days in a week.
24 x 7 > the number of hours
in a week . . .  168.
I work in a building for 8 hours
a day, 5 days a week.
5 x 8 > 40
40 from 168 equals 128 hours.
Now figure in sleep.
8 x 7 > 56
Assuming I do it inside,
no rays.
So . . . 128 hours minus 56 equals
72 hours.
Even if we count eating inside
at a leisurely pace,
say 3 hours a day
times 7 > 21
72 - 21 > 51 hours.
There are 51 hours out there
I could be in the sun.
No excuse.

                 published in For the Love of Death, the early years, 2nd. ed., S.I.N., 1993.

Shadow-paint

Outside the glass, across venetian blinds,
the setting spring sun
puts a gash of light along the wall
to the floor, with shadows.
Stark limbed bushes waver in wind,
moving shadows, stationary blinds,
hot light, all sloping down.
The pattern will rise up the wall
until florescence smothers it all.

Outside the glass darkly,
cold to the touch,
limbs of bushes still
rattle in a wind filled night.

                    published in For the Love of Death, the early years, 2nd ed., S.I.N., 1993.

Bar Time

Table of circles
marks the passing drinks,
passing time


more than ashtrays
which women take
as they get full.


Reflections from neon,
brighter rings for
newer drinks,


beer signs add color
to a dim, ill-lighted place
of standing circles.


Fuck bar towels anyway.
Dry ringlets tell me
how long.


                  published in For the Love of Death, the early years, 2nd ed., S.I.N., 1993.

Statistics

Incoming.
Sitting in a muddy shell-hole,
you never know if
lightning is going to strike twice.
The only thing that keeps you
sane is a pack of smokes,
and one dry match.


                 published in For the Love of Death, the early years, 2nd ed., S.I.N., 1993.

Diplomacy of War

If war is diplomacy by other means,
gods bless those means.
In the silence of Death
amenity's armor is forgotten.
The cold bite of wind
finds ecstasy in both
flesh and soul: a union in
the teeth of wolves.

                 published in For the Love of Death, the early years, S.I.N, 1993

Embryo

There are other words for it:
succubus or incubus.  Take your choice,
as if you had any.
A vampire by any other name . . .
At night the winged fiend
settled its loving embrace.
With its fangs it dipped
into the blood to suck away a life
for its own ends.  Innocent?
Innocent as all things are which
preserve their own lives.
If a State can name it
a State can take its life.
That might be a rule.
Secular authority makes a State,
so watch out for that Church on the right.
It might reach out and grab you,
maybe not with the Laws of Life.
If you're going to  believe, don't
forget about the original sin.
Was it Dante who put the babies
crawling around in hell?
Or was it someone older?
Chance, you say, give them a chance.
The same chance they give me.
Their soul against mine, and
they've already got that so
they're fair game if I am.
Give up a piece of your soul;
a pound of flesh doesn't buy much.
It only takes, and takes, and takes.
Somewhere in the law there is
something about self-defense.
Nobody ever uses the right word.
As the nausea ends and the beast
is gone, then you can make peace
with yourself and anybody else you
choose.  No one is forcing you anymore.
No one is feeding off of you anymore.
Don't worry, the law will protect you.
After all, it puts women in prison
for killing the men that rape them.
Mary was about that lucky.



                  published in For the Love of Death, the early years, S.I.N., 1993.

An Old Legend

They crossed legends and time
to fill a long coming plan.
They followed, and they lead
into the land of light
through the grey mists.

           
                   published in For the Love of Death, the early years, S.I.N., 1993.

About Luck

Let's talk about luck
for a second;
if you and me
were to cut a deck,
high card wins,
I'd get a ten:
the highest of all the numbers.
That would leave me with nothing
to worry about but royalty . . .
oh yea, and the ace of spades.

       published in For the Love of Death: the early years, 2nd, ed., S.I.N., 1993.

An Old Story

They saw the darkness.
They saw the light,
gave them names of black and white.
They built the cities, geniuses all,
calling them grey because of the fall.
The sea surrounded, shifted in space.2n
It baffled, mingled with each new race.
It changed its color it seemed.
Colors muted, changed in depth.
It lined up the corpses taken by Death.

               published  in For the Love of Death: the early years, 2nd ed., S.I.N., 1993.

Introductory quote to "Love of Death"

The keys are like a grinning skull,
  and they clatter from the chill:
     stripped to the bone.

This is probably the only thing saved from the 1st edition of this book.  The rest of it was terrible!

Books of Poetry

     There seems to be a tradition among poets, or maybe it just some kind of literary conceit, that once you have a body of published work, you put together a book of poetry.  Since no publisher offered even the slightest encouragement along those lines, and I do not blame them, there is no money to be made in books of poetry; I published three myself.
     Between nineteen ninety-three and nineteen ninety four, I pulled together all my published work and all the poetry that had never been accepted for placement, and self published books called For the Love of Death: the Early Years, Living with a Stranger: Self-portrait, and Love is Just Lust Misspelled.  There are very few copies of these books out there, and they were published under my own name.  I believe they can be found in some libraries.  I guess if you can find them, you can find out who I am.
     I will be adding posts over the next month or so from these three books.  They will be the poems which never came to be in print before.

Imprinting

One day, I was changing my daughter's diaper
when a dog began to howl.  Just the mad howl
of a pent-up dog, but we both stopped breathing.
When I looked down at her again
I could see the wonder in her slack jaw,
the fear in her alexandrite eyes.
The shivering in my spine had just
subsided when I told her "dau"
which is her word for dog.   She took
this idea quickly and the fear was gone
leaving only the wonder in her mouth.
It was then that I told her "werewolf".
Someday, she will shiver in the daylight.

                published in Wind Row, vol. 2, no. 1, Fall, 1983
                this poem shared the Jerard Merit Award for Poetry, 1983.

May 8, 1991

The grass is wet
like may dreams of you:
a carpet of jade tongues
moist as yours.
There is a steam rising
from the ground.  The sun is hot
between rain storms.
Rising signs, rising signs.
You have taken me
out of winter binding.
Our skin is blinding pale
in the sunlight; it is
hungry like your mouth.
Moist as grass,
your hair on my thighs,
lust in your eyes,
you drink bitter milk
of spring time.

          published in Impish Impetus, no. 3, 1994.

Hunting Season

In town,
dry fall leaves
red and yellow last
before rain speeds decay.
Parking lot row
new metallic blue Toyota pickup truck:
stabled, four by four,
gun rack with Winchester pump
twelve gauge cleaned and ready.
Windshield reflects sky,
reflects scream of hawk,
squeak of sparrow
taken off hood.
Rusty breast and tail feathers of grey
shimmer in glass,
dark talons weighted,
dart between naked poplars,
over roofs
back to sky.

            published in Prominent Voices in American Poetry, JMW Publishing Co., 1999.

Wedding Reception

Lovers at receptions are drunk.
Sacrifice has been made,
orgy commenced.
When I see the magician raise his hand
in benediction, fear begins.
Tables with white cloths,
brides waiting for the slop of wine.
Illusions grow in drinking.
The couple is drunker than most.
They have the most pain to kill.
Old eyes are pleased;
what they did is condoned.
Crazy young eyes can't see
through the spell of the priest.
The room is hot.
Everybody can be a fool
once in their life; it's not irrevocable.
But, something feeds off those tables.

           published in Wind Row II, winter, 1993.

Lull

Engine sound faded
palpable sound
country road was still
dust settled
a moment in summer
no motion
ripe wheat, zero breeze
clear sun sky
heated yellow
dusty golden crystal
dust-devil swirled
wind picked up
wheat rustled
gone

             published in Wind Row II, winter 1993.

Religion

The bastard breeds as well as the Son;
remember the Father never married.
Not two wrongs but a trillion . . .
Against the will of woman, we have
been raped and the children suffer.
So breed the blasphemies.

         published in Wind Row, vol. 1, spring 1983.

Love is Just Lust Misspelled

How much do I want you?
I can only think of how you taste:
the small beads of sweat glistening
on your belly.  Afternoon sun makes
glitters of moisture,
magnify each hair around your navel
as they pass into the deep.
I want to see passion
rise up into a hooded cobra
ready to strike, hissing
with desire.  I want to feel
your lust, two fanged as it bites
into my body, venomous with
the smell of your damp skin.
I want your tongue to taste,
to know my flavor as I
savor yours.  As beast
in my jaws you perish;
in your teeth I live.
My body is what
I can sacrifice to your desire.
These sheets are alter;
cut out my flesh and hold it steaming
to the sky.  Devour me
with the hunger of a jaguar
in your eyes.  I will know then
love?

          published in Pagan Palaver, 1993?

Farm House

There is an old house on a corner in town,
shake walls, deep porch,
dead blue pick-up
slowly oxidizing in the yard.
Spruce have all gone dark,
like the house.
Lentil plant across
the street has galvanized steel
walls of silos.
Little metal shack
on top has windows for eyes.
Duct tentacles spread out
to the elevators.  Mushroom vents
are sundials; the sun moves
No sound from the house;
a red warning sign is nailed to the door.
The plant grumbles.
It is hungry.

             published in Trestle Creek Review, no. 17, 2000.

Water Tower

. . . an old water tower on the edge
of town. It's not used anymore.
They still haven't torn it down.
Silver paint sheds in rusty
patches: a well-traveled knight
of old, or a rocket that never
made a journey.
It's there in February wheat fields
without the green of early spring,
or shine of the cold white snow.
The mud is still frozen.

Evening comes early this far
north.  A light from the West sweeps
in under gray sky, a honey light
smooths this dead place.
Warm air from the coast
over the mountains brings rain,
not the snow of the high passes.

Every year the plows get closer
to the supports; asphalt
spreads wider from town.
The tower will vanish.
I'll flip a coin
as to which finally kills
the hollow ring in the reservoir.

              published in High Plains Literary Review, vol. VII, no. 3, winter 1992.

Achilles

Mister Suit is pressed today
as he walks to work on the concrete
just recently uncovered from snow.
The dark blue cloth is well creased,
well cleaned; and the black, neatly
tied shoes click nicely.  Between
leather and the cuff, his socks betray
through frayed web of threads:
his white heel.  Without slaves,
how much it costs, to well maintain
the armor of a work a day world.

             published in Northern Journeys, vol. 2, no. 3, Oct.-Dec., 1998.

Assumption of the God-form

Sorcery paints a picture with thought,
stepping into that form passes all danger.
It rises up like compressed air
through the deep, Caribbean blue
until it becomes part of the breeze
blowing on the water.
Nuit, in Hathor's form, bends down
exposing her charms to the world below.
In a dream, people never hit
the rocks when they fall.
They awaken suddenly.
That's the spirit returning home
so psyche isn't creamed.
Some folks wake up with bruises;
they really want to hit those rocks.
When fucking with some goddess
in a dream, who gets stuck
sleeping in the wet spot?
What sorcery gives you is a wet-dream
with no stains on the mattress.
They're all with goddess.

            published in Wind Row, vol. 2, no. 2, Spring, 1984.

Albion, Wash.

There really is a place
with that name.  I know.
I live there, and it wasn't
settled by giants.  In the graveyard
there isn't one more than six feet.
Some are smaller.  Young things died
sooner back then.

                              From the center
of town, you can see it
as you pick up your mail,
one of the last stands of pine
in the Palouse.  The graves
in between make pines seem
darker.  Spring wheat makes trees
more of a shadow, old growth
against new.

                published in Wind Row, vol. 2, no., Spring 1984.

Locust, May 4, 1970

The pictures are black and white;
but even though the passions
are embers I still see them
as green, with black dead eyes.
Some of them have taken off
their masks and turned away;
but the fury of the black faceless
eyes of the others is real, and empty.
There's a kid off to the side
flipping them the bird; I think
he bought a bullet for his trouble.
The pictures are all black and white;
but even though the passions are
embers I still see them as red.
Red pools in the parking lot
flowing down to the rain-gutter
over a hundred fucking yards away
from the damn Guard and their rifles.
They are only pictures, only embers.
God help the breeze that fans them.

                 published in Wind Row, vol. 2, no. 2, Spring, 1984.

Self

Take a mirror,
full length is best,
remove your cloths,
kneel down before it,
look at yourself.
See a skeleton,
fat man, fat woman,
thin man, thin woman,
god, goddess,
cross your legs and see,
close your eyes and see more.

       published in The White Light, Pasadena, CA; Vol. 15, no. 3, Summer, 1989.


The poem was based on an old Buddhist meditation technique.  The White Light is a publication that comes out of the Temple of Truth (T.O.T.) a magical organization in Southern California.  I had never been involved with this group before, so I did not realize that they come out of the traditions of the Golden Dawn or some Western magical tradition that does not use Eastern traditions, so using their editorial license they changed one word in the piece.  I think it changes the tone of the poem.  What do you think?

Take a mirror,
full length is best,
remove your cloths,
kneel down before it,
look at yourself.
See a skeleton,
fat man, fat woman,
thin man, thin woman,
god, goddess,
cross your legs and see,
close your eyes and see nothing.

The Corridor

Hog Heaven to Three Forks,
you go through the corridor,
between the hills, along
Paradise
Creek.  It's a name,
something pop press and
real estate likes:
an ink, pulp handle, muddy
as spring water during
runoff.
Titles hold little of what is
there.
Between Hallows Eve and
the snows
of Solstice, the prairie grass
is color of straw.
It covers black earth by the
stream
wandering across the
boarder.
Rusted rails of an iron road
use the flood plain also.
Cottonwoods have lost all
but a few yellow leaves,
ruddy whips on dark
skinned trunks.
Rouge of the last storm
touches far counties in the East;
West rim can be seen clear.
Hawks hunt the corridor,
hover on the wind.
They eat their mice
on telephone poles, fence
posts.
When snow falls, it covers
the machine in the gravel
quarries.
When it falls deep enough;
they shut down.
The machines have lights
so they can see at night,
grind away, grind away.
Except for a small diversion,
the highway follows the
water.
There's a road cut through
one mound.  They finally
planted
some seedlings to fight
the angle of repose.
This hallway doesn't run
straight to an ending,
and name makes it easy
to ignore, the corridor.

               published in ADmart, Moscow, ID, June 18, 1998.
               This poem took a 2nd place in the paper's poetry contest for that year.

Commentary on "A Little Thing"

     I wrote this poem when I was very young, probably before I was fourteen years old.  It just goes to show, you can get anything published.

A Little Thing

I am smaller than a dinosaur,
and smaller than a house,
smaller than a lithoweer,
and smaller than a mouse.

Ants you see are big to me,
and blades of grass are trees.
A tear it is a flood to me,
and puddles are the seas.

If you can guess as to what I am,
you too are small and free.

           published in Night Roses, Issue # 14, Spring/Summer, 1996.

Cabin Fever

The snow had been on the ground
for three months, and according
to the radio another storm was coming.
Naturally we got stoned out
of our minds.
We took out all the plastic
plates from the cupboard
and played Frisbee at midnight
under a full moon.
We left them in the snow.
By the time we woke
there was another foot of snow
covering the ground.  We ate from
cans and paper for the rest
of the winter.  I'll know
when spring comes; the yard will be
full of red plastic plates.

          published in Bogg, no. 61, 1989.

Watchers

In the shadows of the night
we see the darkness;
in the darkness
we see the light.

My concrete steps are twenty
yards from the interstate North.
In the tiny hours before dawn,
flashing amber signal
outlines exhaust.
Waiting for disaster
while the hearth cools
before some dozing
love of what is fair.
On guard against sleep,
watching the produce trucks
ride a ribbon of death
dredged up from a world
so long past, it was reptile ruled.
Supplies move at night
so no one sees
them come
and go.

Anarchy in Proverbs

Ask me no Questions, I'll tell you know Lies.

1.  If you use people as machines,
     they will eventually be replaced by machines.
2.  Science and technology teach people
     how to use machines.
3.  Politics is the opiate of the middle class.
4.  Any nation which kills to protect society
     isn't the best.
5.  Any religion which claims to know what "god" wants
     isn't the best.  ("god" is more than capable
     of talking to any person It wants to, and vice versa.)
6.  Anarchy through Empathy.
7.  Organization should never last longer
     than it takes to preserve a life.
8.  When the need ends, so should the organization.
9.  Organization should never come before
     the need.  (Hindsight is always best.)
10.  Living is important.
11.  You never really know what Living is
        until you Die.
12.  Any nation founded on revolution
       should not be trusted to represent its people.
13.  Violence is an individual act.

             published in Wind Row II, issue 1, Spring 1989.

    

Commentary On "The Great God Time" & ". . . put a toast in it"

Both these poems were published at the same time in Not Your Average Zine.  I smiled when I pulled the old copy of this off the shelf where it has been gathering dust in the pile.  On the cover is an old Peanuts cartoon.  Sally walks up to Charlie Brown and asks, "We've been reading poems in school, but I never understand any of them."  She continues, "How am I suppose to know which poems to like?"  Charlie Brown answers, "Somebody tells you."

I sometimes wonder after years of reading and writing poetry, etc., if this is not true.  Are the good ones only good because somebody told me?

". . . put a toast in it!"

Evening sky
strawberry sherbet swirl in an electric
blue ice,
with a moon . . .
thanks to the moon.
It keeps that cloying sweet taste
out of my mouth.
A goddess in rut is
always welcome.

By dawn there will be
four planets in a line across
the sky; four of the old ones.
To the West Mars,
to the East Venus,
Saturn and Jupiter above.
Orion and his dog watch over them.
Mercury can not be seen.

This is Mars' closest point
since the last attack.
Next month it will be on TV,
and up there, unseen Neptune
is getting ready to come up
from the deep.

A tinker toy gnat is going
to take pictures.

        published in Not Your Average Zine, Atlanta, GA, 1989.

The Great God Time

Digital watches are
for those who want
point A to point B.

To hear
the music of the spheres,
a clock with hands
is necessary.

        published in Not Your Average Zine, Atlanta, GA, 1989.

Gospel of Thomas

In the beginning was the word,
         it fell out of the Sky
         crashing to the Earth
lying there like a beached whale.
          Stones had voices,
       knew the magic tongue,
         turning great cold fish
         into great cold stone.
        They saw it was good.
                The little ape
       came out from the trees,
    forgetting the whisper of leaves,
              wisdom of roots,
to cast among stones for voices.

              published in Magic Realism, v.  IV.I, Spring, 1993

Moscow Mountain

Prophecy:

"Fuck and A brother,
it's all going to be ocean front property
when California slips on up the coast
and the Cascades sink into the sea.
We're going to have us a nice little inlet here.
'course it's going to be a little hot
while Hanford's still bubbling.
It's safe though,
they keep telling us.
Tell that to the poor bastards
who died at Nagasaki."

Present:

Each morning we watch it come up
as we drive over a rise of hills.
Mountain in the mist, mountain in the sun,
in mountain itself.
I never go there;
you have to be a sorcerer.
All the roads say private.

Presence:

A storm coming on from the East,
while looking down into the valleys
sun patched crossing the tops of the trees.
Wheat fields in the West
being closed down in a cloud of dust
with green caterpillars crawling in a line:
evening air, red with dust.

The Other Book:

Old mountain, old trees
listening to echoes of black seas
as they flowed from the fissures
and never crashed back from the shore.
They remember what was in the bones of the earth,
echoes from the dream.
A dream of shadows marks the future.

          published in Win Row, v. 1, no. 2, Spring 1985.

Authority Files

     I drink too much; I'm partly drunk now.  Mary left me last week; she told me I needed to talk to somebody: a psychiatrist.  I was doing fine up until a month ago when the nightmares started again.  Started drinking again, and finally got drunk enough to tell her the story.  She thinks I'm nuts.  It only took her a week to leave me after I told her.
     Go to a shrink?  I'd rather kill myself with the booze.  They wouldn't believe me either.  Things like that don't happen, can't happen.  No white rooms for me.  Computer rooms?  They're mostly all white.  I'm even writing on a computer.  I shouldn't be writing this.  It can get me this way.  He's dead, isn't he?  I should know, I killed him.  But that damn machine is still out there.
     I'm drunk enough.  I can write this.  Maybe it will help me forget it.
     It started in college, working in the library.  That's on a computer most of the time inputing bibliographic records into a large nationwide system.  All big libraries are computerized these days.   They don't even have card catalogs anymore.  They're linked into networks of holdings.  You can punch in a title, and if one library doesn't have it, another one does.
     So I had a lot of library experience and decided to go to library school.  That's what they like to call an MLS in the library business, a Master of Library Science.  That's where they taught me about authority files.  Authority files keep all those computer records straight.  Uniform titles, authors, series: everything neat and tidy.  Just check your authority file.
     I was fresh out of graduate school, looking for my first job.  But times were tight for librarians.  Nobody was hiring in reference work, and I was tired of cataloging.   So when I heard about a new bibliographic network starting in the Pacific Northwest, I applied.  When I took the call for an interview, I was down and out.  There were only a couple hundred left in the account.  So I had to follow through.  The rent had to be paid; I had to eat.
     The network was based in Seattle.  It always rains in Seattle, at least that's what everybody says.  The first time I saw Seattle it was sunny, warm, with blue skies.  The interview went well, and I was offered the job.  It was checking records against an authority file just like the records I input back in college.  I was a natural.  I took it.
     You have to make sure those records are all the same or they get all messed up.  Too many ways to spell a name, too many open entries.  And you have to close those entries when they are finished.  You have to close those entries.
     Do you know what Seattle reminds me of now?  Something washed up on a beach.  Some huge pale sea-beast with tentacles reaching out into the dark forests and mists of the Sound.  It's something that doesn't quite belong there. A modern technological wonder somehow linked to ancient forces that twist the finest ideas along dark paths.  It's evil.  Like that white room where they put me to work, with a couple of computer terminals, me on one and him on another.
     At first I didn't think of him as strange.  A spindly little clerical worker, yes, a bit of a nerd, yes, but just a guy.  His name was Drew.
     He was about forty I guess, thin greying hair, black plastic glasses, and fond of those button up sweaters you parents always made you wear when you were a kid.  I guess he was always cold.  Computers need to be cool.  Drew was cold inside anyway.  After we were introduced by our supervisor, he never said a word except to answer my questions about work.
     It started to get on my nerves.  I didn't know anybody in the town.  He was my closet contact to a human being in that little room with the computers.  It started to seem like the whole world.  So I started to talk to him, started to work my way through that cold exterior.  We didn't have anything in common except books.  That's where I stared.  If I knew what I know now, I would have asked him to a Seahawks game and put him right off.
     We talked American writers, English writers, French writers: good writers and bad writers.  We didn't really connect on who we liked, but literature was at lease a beginning.  He liked Wordsworth, I liked Coleridge.  When I brought up Poe, Drew brought up Hawthorne.  Fitzgerald brought up Hemingway, Cather made him talk of Anderson.  Baudelaire turned him to Voltaire.  He was kind of stuffy in what he liked, nothing too far out of  line with the world as he saw it.
     I finally asked him out for a drink after work.  To my surprise, he excepted.  We ended up at a little dive near the U district.  It was quiet that night, we could hear each other.  Before we went in, he stuck a quarter into a paper-stand for the evening edition.  He set it carefully folded between us on the bar, occasionally glancing at it as we talked over our first couple of drinks.  Eventually there was a lull in the conversation.
     Drew picked up the paper and turned straight to the obituaries without even glancing at the front page.  Scanning the column of people who had died, his eyes stopped at a name.  His lips curled up into a smile.  Setting it in front of me, he tapped his finger on the notice.
     "Good, I'm glad he's dead.  Never liked him anyway," he said with definite glee, no remorse what so ever.  His actions were those of man almost expecting what he had found.  It was a stupid thought, but it did cross my mind.  He must have heard it on the radio or something.
     I looked at the name.  I'd heard of it somewhere before.  Reading quickly, it turned out that I probably had.  He had been a minor writer over the last ten or twenty years.  He had turned to politics for a time in the sixties, little protests and court cases over the war, women's liberation: that kind of thing.
     "Hell, I thought he was dead years ago," I commented.  "I guess I'll have to close his entry in the database."
     "Humph," he breathed out, "don't even bother."
     It was just a statement of disgust, but thinking back there was something else there.  We closed out our evening early and he went his way, I went mine.
     When I arrived at work the next day, I sat down with my first cup of coffee in front of the machine.  I glanced over at the empty station where my fellow drone should have been sitting.  He was a little late today.  No big deal, he usually stayed late.  I started sorting through the set-works.  Then I remembered the obituary from last night.
     I keyed in the name.  It came up readily enough with about half a dozen entries attached.  He wasn't prolific or anything.  I was about to put his date of death in after the little dash following his birth date, but it was already there.  Somebody had beaten me to it.  I looked over at the empty terminal.  He couldn't have.  And there was nobody else in the office that would have.  Just a strange screw-up I guessed.  Like me, somebody else had figured that he was dead years ago.  But it was this years date?
     Drew wandered in about an hour late.  He looked a little worse for wear from the night before.  The man wasn't use to drinking.  It was break time before he looked like he could be spoken to.  I told him about the closing date.
     "I told you not to bother," was his answer.  "I closed it yesterday morning."
     I still thought he had heard it on the radio or TV, on the way to work or something, and shrugged it off.  I went  back to correcting records, and sending them back if they were too messed up.  AACR2 has to be stuck to, there are rules to find pigeon holes.
     After lunch, Drew was looking a lot better.  We started to talk about one of my favorite writers from the sixties.  He had recently been rediscovered by a whole new generation.  He was on the supermarket shelves.  That must have annoyed him no end, being in a supermarket was counter to all he wrote about.
     Of course my co-worker hated him with a passion.  Our discussion grew a little hot.   With a final jibe about what a crummy writer the man was, and how stupid the people were who actually read  him, the man called me around to his side of the work station.  He pointed to the screen of his terminal.
     Drew had called up the authority file record on the CRT.  There was my author's name all neatly outlined in little green electrons on the screen.  He had placed his cursor next to the dash by his birth date.  The man typed in the current year as his death, making him dead according to the computer.  A totally contented look filled his face.  I frowned my displeasure.
     "Ha, ha, ha," I let fall in a totally bored way.  He was pissing me off the little jerk.  I went back to work, and we didn't say anything to each other for the rest of the day.  I didn't plan to say much to him for the rest of my life.  I'd just about decided he was too much of a geek, and I'd rather be bored and lonely.  I went home at five, ate some food, had some beer over the tube, and fell asleep to late night static.
     After a shower in the morning, I pulled in the paper from the concrete and wrought iron "veranda" outside my front door.  That's what I liked to call the walk-up to my one bedroom apartment.  The paper boy was getting to be a better shot by then.  I was pouring my coffee when the article on the front page made me spill it.
     It was the freakiest thing that had ever happened to me.  That writer was dead as hell, some kind of car accident.
     "Weird coincidence," I thought out loud.
     That was the sort of thing I would gladly have drunk away the night talking to my friends about back in college.  But I didn't have any friends here, just work, and Drew.  I wasn't going to give him the satisfaction of mentioning it.  I didn't have to.
     "I'm glad he's dead too," was what he hit me with first thing in the morning.  He had the same smile he had back in the bar that night.
     "I'm not," I answered as indifferently as I could.  I was not happy about how happy he was.  "It was strange the way it happened though."
     "Bullshit." Drew said firmly.  "I killed the fucker."
     'He's crazy as well as a loon,' I said to myself.  He must have known what I was thinking.
     "I can prove it.  Who do you want me to kill.  As long as they're in the machine, I can kill them.  All I have to do is close the entry."
     "Sure . . ." I hesitated.  I decided to humor him.  "Kill the president you jerk."
     "No, I like him.  I only kill the people I want to."
     I didn't say anything else to him.  I worked on the machine for the rest of the day, took long breaks, and generally avoided him until I could get out of there.  He was totally nuts.  The squirrel had finally cracked up in his chosen profession.  I decided then and there, I wanted a nice quiet library to work in.  I wasn't going to wind up like this freak.  I made it home with out talking to him.  There was a bottle around and beer in the fridge.   I forgot about the day fast.
     That night the dream started.  I woke up sweating in Seattle and it wasn't the humidity.  It took place at work.  Drew was sitting across the way from me doing his job.  I was closing entries on my terminal.  I glanced down at what I was doing.  When I looked up again, he was the skulled face of Death.  I go back to work, try and ignore him.  When I look up again his eyes are staring into me.  There are no eyes, just empty sockets, but I know that they are looking at me.  It scares me.  I decide not to look up again.  I close more entries.  Then I look down at my own hands; they are bones.  They rattle on the keys.  I have become Death.  I woke up and had to check if my hands still had flesh on them.  I had to go into the bathroom and look in the mirror to see if I still had a face.
      It  was just a dream, I knew that.  But I didn't get back to sleep until it was nearly light outside.  I woke up tired, made coffee.  Drank it while I took a shower, and pulled on some cloths.  When I pulled in the paper from outside, I didn't even look at it, just let it sit on the kitchen table.  I wasn't afraid or anything, just didn't have the time.
     When I arrived at work, Drew was already at his terminal.  He didn't say anything, and I wasn't about to.  The days passed like this.  If it wasn't work related, we didn't talk.  And during those days, I never opened the newspaper.  I began to think I was afraid to look.  I was running down fast.  Drinking helped, but I always woke up with a hangover.  When I didn't drink, I woke up terrified.  It was starting to show in my work.  I was making mistakes.  This couldn't go on.
      One morning I decide that what I was feeling was all bullshit.  I walked deliberately to the front door of my apartment and ripped open the paper and started reading it.  On the second page, the coffee cup froze half way to my lips.  Another writer was dead.  This time a poet from the beat generation of the fifties.  I didn't want to go to work that day.  I called in sick.  But that only worked for one day.  I had to face the evil little man tomorrow.  He had become the "evil little man" in my mind.  I was really cracking up.
     It was just a coincidence.  I kept telling myself this.  I would go to work the next day and everything would be fine.  He would just be a clerical worker.  When I went to sleep, the dream came again.  My hands became white, bony claws on the keys.  I think I woke up screaming, but the apartment was quiet.  There was no one there to tell me otherwise.
     I drove to work the next day telling myself that I was just going to ignore him.
     'He isn't going to get to me with his crazy power trip.   It is a figment of his twisted mind.  If it gets any worse, I will tell my supervisor that the guy has obviously snapped and let him take care of it.'  That is what my rational mind was saying.  The tired side of me, the dream side of me, was shouting that I should keep driving, turn south, find some beach with sun.
     It had been raining for what seems like two months solid.  When I pulled into the company parking lot, I sat for a minute listening to the wipers clear my vision.  Then the mist would cloud it over again.  I turned off the engine and climbed out into the damp, grey mist and black asphalt.  The worms were all on the surface so they wouldn't drown.  I had to avoid them as I walked in the side entrance of the office.
     He looked up when I sat down at my terminal.  Drew had  been waiting for me.
     "You were sick yesterday," he said with the same smile from the bar.  "Did you see the paper?"
     "No," I said curtly trying to hide the fact that I had by staring into my screen.  He knew that I was lying.
     "I killed him too," he pointed out with a giggle.  Then he stood up and headed off to the break room with an empty coffee cup in hand.
     "Drop dead asshole," I yelled after him.  He glanced over his shoulder and giggled again as he went for his coffee.
     I dropped my hands from the keyboard and stared into my screen.  My mind had gone, too little sleep, no one to talk to, I don't know.  The image of my hands turning to fleshless bone filled my head.  I began to type.  I dropped out of set-work screens into the main authority file.  I made up a record for a new author, filled in his birth date.  I glanced up at the break room door.
     "Drop dead asshole," I whispered.  Then I filled in the death date and hit the enter key.  There was a moment of quiet, a slight hush of soundless automation stopping.  And then the sound of a coffee cup falling on the concrete floor in the break room: a cry of a concerned staff member.  I didn't bother to look.
     Putting on my coat from the back of the chair, I stared down at the screen.  I glanced at the flesh covering my hands, and then kicked out the terminal screen with a soft, electrical implosion.  I left by the side door and never went back.
     I was doing ok, until the dreams started again.

                                    published in Fugue: The Univ. of Idaho Literary Digest, Spring/Summer, 1992, #5

    
    
    
    

COMMENTARY ON NEVER WITH ONE

     I wrote this poem in nineteen seventy-two.  It was the very first poem I ever had published.  I had forgotten about it until years later.  When I first turned up in English 101 as a freshmen in college, the teacher asked us to write a short paragraph about ourselves.  This poem popped into my mind as a prose poem.  Someday I would like to find that piece.  It made an impression on my teacher that helped me swim in the direction that I finally swam.  There were a lot of eddies along the way.
     It was not until the early nineteen eighties in poetry school that I learned my lessons in line strength.  I would be curious to know it that prose piece complied with what I learned.
    

Never With One

The dark black sky lay above,
     lit by countless worlds of light.
The soft cool earth beneath,
     with countless worlds of darkness.
A man lay in between,
      one with both though never with one.
Breezes of the night cannot still this troubled
      brain.
Life can solve it perhaps in time
      and death will solve it when the time comes.
And he waits, never with one, always in between.
As time passes men will see
      that this is the way it has to be.
As he waits, never with one, all ways in between.

 Angles of Vision 72 printed in Karachi: AISK; ISI; LAS; KAS, 1972

MISSION STATEMENT

      It is probably time to give the reader of this blog, if there ever are any readers of this blog, some clarification as to what A Total Solid Waste is about.  It is, in the beginning at least, going to be a catalog of all my published work.  I have been writing and publishing under another name for years.  During all this time I have never managed to earn a living through my writing.  I believe I finally broke the one hundred dollar mark in earnings in about nineteen ninety-two with a ten dollar check for a poem.  This huge amount of earned income includes the question I sent to the Question Man column in the San Francisco Chronicle in the late sixties.  The question was Would you be dishonest for ten thousand dollars?.  I made fifty dollars for that one line.  I have not had anything in print since about two thousand and one.  I must just like the writing.
     I will be writing under the new nom de guerre of John Smith, IIMXIII.  With this new pen name I hope to be publishing in the world of the online via a website called Triond.  The old work will be here for anybody to access if they are interested.
     The title of this blog comes from how I have spent the last eighteen years earning a living.  I have been helping to manage the solid waste flow of a small university in the Pacific Northwest.  It really has not been a waste of time; I keep telling myself that.  I have learned about the American education system from the bottom up.  I hope to be finished with The Secret World of Garbage soon.
     With a degree in English from another small university and fourteen years of information services in academic libraries, it is amazing what I have learned from the solid waste flow.  Garbage is just another index of how our society works, an hands on example of how the trickle down theory really functions.