Iced Lemon Archways

iced lemon archways
could be the first three words

in a poem about aquariums or
the grand avenues of europe
but this is not that poem

instead these words lead
to childhood and the memory of
mom at the very edge

when dad would need a neighbor
or an uncle or a paramedic
to calm her down and prove
there was no plot

to
take away
her kids or
steal imaginary fortunes or
follow orders from the CIA

but just calm her down and
go see a doctor at the hospital
on the eighth floor where
the voices go to die

iced lemon archways
never graced aquariums or
led to europe or
any other escape route

they were a type of cookie and
grandma brought them to
my little brother and me

to settle things down
and say i'm sorry
but 40 years from now

you'll be in line at
the grocery store and see
someone buying cookies
and you'll think of this

and there's not a damn thing you can do about it.

1992 - 2009

I'm sorry I couldn't cure your suffering.

I could only end it.

Nancy Is Patient, To A Point...

But if you talk all through her set and distract everybody and fail to applaud, well...You'd better be ready to dodge those optical death-ray laser eyeballs.

(CLICK PHOTO TO ENLARGE)

I'm just sayin'

Past Light

A good time of day is when the sun is still a little stronger than the streetlights and it loiters behind the rooftops like we did in high school and for a moment I can look from then to now and see the geometry of skylines at dusk is still good enough reason to draw another breath.

UNTITLED 2

i took a chair
into the bathroom
and set it down
with the radio playing
and sipped a cool bottle of beer
with my legs stretched out
ankles crossed over the edge of the tub

there was a baby spider
climbing the shower curtain
and fresh towels folded
in a drawer

it was about 8:00
on a Tuesday evening
and a fire engine screamed down
the street outside
around the corner
and deep into the city

looking for someone to save.

WISHES

drawn tight
under secret wishes of
the monday morning club
are rules for the dead and dying

one

that all birds disappear
in 5/8 time as
coffee pours from a thermos

two

that our fingerprints smear
exactly as our friends have warned

three

that when bells strike
towers remain smiling.

E-Mail Reply

The following copy/paste is my reply to an e-mail I received from a friend tonight. It was one of those "Jesus Loves You" chain letters that actually claims to deliver " a miracle in your life soon" if it gets forwarded to 10 people. She is still my friend and always will be, but..... (sigh)

Xxxxxxxx -

I read the message all the way through, but did not pass it on. Not because I was offended or refuse to believe in anything, but because I don't know what to believe in when it comes to the question of God. Maybe there is one and maybe there isn't, but every religion I have experienced, studied, or read about has failed for me personally. The way I describe myself is "agnostic buddhist", which means that most of the tenets of buddhism make sense to me, except for the stories of him walking and talking right after being born, or other supernatural events attributed to his life. Buddha himself may even be a fictitious character created by someone who thought the message would be accepted more widely if people thought there was a "divine being" involved. Doesn't matter to me. ( But I'm getting sidetracked here... )

I was born a Roman Catholic, but have never accepted their version of things because they have never answered the basic question I have had from childhood : If the Roman Catholic Church is the One True Church, why does any other church or religion even exist ? Is it some kind of test God is conducting upon us ? Or what ? Someone might say it is enough JUST TO BELIEVE. To not worry over these things and to just trust God. Well, that's a heck of thing to do in a church whose preists have been molesting children for all these years. It's crazy. And what about the Holocaust ? Was the Christian God punishing the Jews ?

Sorry to get so heavy here. I'm not trying to start an argument or be a smart aleck. I just wanted to give an honest reply to your e-mail. Whoever started this chain put a lot of heart and honest feeling into it and I don't want to make fun of them. Everyone needs to find transcendence in the human experience and I am no exception. Life is an extraordinary journey and who knows what it all ultimately means.

Love,
Dave

Las Vegas, What Are These Odds ?

Evening rush hour on a Monday and I need a few grocery items. The parking lot is impossible so I grab a metered spot across the street, which means a quarter will have to be found and sacrificed to Mayor Daley's latest best friends.

In my car, the twin cup-holders serve as mathematical constants. On the left, we have the bottle of water. It could be tap, mineral, or "fresh mountain", but it is impossible to reduce in value or eliminate from the automotive equation. On the right is the 1 or 2 inch-deep stash of loose coins. Their value may increase or decrease but their presence is a given.

Having parked my car, I picked up the bottle, took a swig, and replaced it to the cup-holder. Then I grabbed a quarter, plus a few other coins to use towards my purchase. Everything seemed to be in order with no variables interrupting my errand.
Another Monday. Another grocery stop. Another sleepwalk through city life at it's most mundane.

When I arrived home, the cat greeted me and demanded his usual attention and food. A pleasure. He is 16 and honestly, his time left is best represented by "X". I opened a fresh can, transferred it to a plate, and served it with a side of organic milk.
After putting away the groceries, I grabbed the water bottle and headed for the computer. And that is when the elegant equation of my evening broke down.

There, in the bottom of the bottle, sunk beneath 3 1/2 inches of water claiming to be "natural !", "alpine !", and "spring !" was a penny. A humble disc of copper that has been a prime factor in most every cash transaction ever calculated. It had fallen perfectly and silently into the approximately 1 inch-wide mouth of the bottle itself.

What are the odds ? I'm no odds-maker, but I can isolate a couple factors for the boys in Vegas.

The path my hand traveled from cup-holder to pocket.

The individual size and overall quantity of the coins themselves.

The carelessness with which I handled the coins.

That last one is a real kicker, too. Because I make my living at counting, recording, and depositing EXACT cash amounts for my company. I have done this for more than a decade and I'm good at it. Accuracy counts. Pennies are as unforgiving as hundred-dollar bills in that department and you're either on or off. No errors allowed.

So I ask you, Mr. Vegas Oddsmaker, shrewd assesor of risk and careful judge of life's variables : What are the odds that something like that could happen ? And whatever odds you give, can I double-down ?

Video Vidi Vici

Unbeknownst to me, someone shot a VIDEO of my January performance at Nancy & Garrett's Songwriter Night at Gallery Cabaret here in Chicago. It's loose, comforatble, and spontaneous, with Marty Connolly of Chocolate Covered Karma jumping in on drums near the end. And that harmony vocal you hear off-stage is Garrett.

Every other Wednesday night.

Gallery Cabaret
2020 N. Oakley
Chicago IL

Hey Everybody......See This Guy ?

He IS NOT Dr. Martin Luther King, Nelson Mandela, or Mahatma Ghandi. Just a quick history lesson for you.

Un-doing the Damage....

January 21st....

....feels every bit as good as November 5.

TOMORROW

at around 11:00 CST
or so - when the whole world
is watching and the earth
continues to rotate
on an axis that revolves
around a sun point
fixed within the swirling arm of
relativism

our universe becomes
just a little bit more
presentable and
I don't believe in magic

1)THERE ARE NO ABSOLUTES
2)PERFECTION DOESN'T EXIST
3)AND THERE'S NO SUCH THING AS MIRACLES

but i believe

i believe.

From The Netherlands

My thanks to Jan Hallers, who has decided to include a poem of mine in his forthcoming magazine "Buk Scene". The majority of the issue is, of course, devoted to Charles Bukowski but will also include the work of other poets. Jan is based in the Netherlands, and has many friends and contacts from around the world so his mag should have a nice international feel to it.

If I knew how to say "Eternally grateful and humble" in Dutch I would do so here.
Instead I'll just go with "Dude ! Are you serious !!? "

HAPPY

a girl who can lace her fingers together
behind my neck and
hang there for just a moment
to tell me
she is happy

this is what I need
as the days tip over
week after week
into the faint exhaust of memory

there's a cut on my shin
and i can't find my glasses

i suppose that's only natural
for a guy who goes to work and
comes home to sit with the TV
like a sick friend

skirting the parties and
questions from people
who don't know any better
(or any worse)

the grey pills do their job
most days and do it so well
sometimes I want a sink full
so i can never be sad again

but a girl
to lace her fingers together
behind my neck and
hang there for just a moment
to tell me
she is happy

this is what I'd die for.

SCREENS

I sat down to watch a DVD tonight
but there was too much outside my window

the fat girl next door
who stands on the sidewalk
flirting on the cellphone
with her boyfriend
and smoking cigarettes
while her husband is inside
changing the diapers
and thinking of much worse

words to call her than fat

the young Hispanic dudes
caps flat-brimmed and cocked
to the side with
tattoos on their neck
baggy shorts
arms crossed over their chest
glaring out at their world
a world of working two jobs
and making car payments and

staying out of other people's trouble

the distant music from
a backyard party across the alley
squeezing past the garage
and up the back steps to
whisper and giggle and

uncork a midnight I wasn't invited to

the tree in the front yard
turning another season
filtering the streetlights
through a riot of scarlet and orange
branching up
arms extended

in October surrender

Approximate Conversations, Vol. 1, No. 2

"They say if you go to the loudest spot that is closest to you, and stay pefectly still for 5 minutes, something happens. Make no movement - remain perfectly silent and hold for a full five minutes. You have to be real careful and consider both volume and distance to hit it just right."

Something happens. What happens ?

"Well, the kind of thing you see in kung-fu movies. Or magical-realist novels. A doorway in full, a bell not rung, and an arc of color and perfume."

When should you go and for how long ?

"To explain : Say you're downtown and there's a car alarm going off. But there's also a construction site around the corner. What do you do ? Remember : TIME! That car alarm is going to get shut down in a few minutes, but those cranes and bulldozers ? All afternoon. However, if the car alarm is going off right in front of your apartment, VOLUME! Who needs to go around the corner ?"

OK - And I go there and ....?

"Something happens."

Something happens?

"Something happens.
Yep. And if you stand as perfectly still as that junior-high king/queen spotlight dance,something like light and volume will exchange particles.... "

Approximate Conversations, Vol. 1, No. 1

"Someday scientists are going to make the connection to the spiritual
realm. Probably the physicists first. They spend all their time
watching the atoms fly around - all that sub-atomic shit, you know ?
They'll make that connection. Guarantee it."

Science is science and religion is horseshit.

"I'm not fuckin talking about religion, dude ! Take all the priests
and rabbis and mullah motherfuckers and line 'em up against the wall!
Fuck 'em - I'm talking about the present-day, eternal reality of
spirit which can be OBSERVED AND CONFIRMED BY SCIENCE ! Do you think
I'm some kind of dropout dumbass who never read a book ?"

What's the difference between religion and reality of spirit ?

"What's the difference between a flashlight and a supernova ? One is
an imitation of the other. We understand and need light - always have.
Eventually we figured out how to duplicate it and keep it near us.
But it's NOT the original reality. We are dealing with surrogates
until we can get the real thing."

Why can't religion get the real thing for us ?

"Because it is happy to settle for second-best. It tells you BE QUIET
AND OBEY YOUR LEADERS AND FOLLOW THE RULES BECAUSE OUR RULES ARE THE
BEST WE CAN DO ! This is why science will have to settle everything.

How do you know science can settle everything ?

"Science has no Pope or Bible or Torah or stable of unicorns. Only
observation and conclusions. The physicists will probably get there
first. Watching the atoms fly around - all that sub-atomic stuff with
the quantum mechanics and whatever. Fuck, man - If God is the
illustrator of all this, then his signature can only be found buried
deep under the paint, woven into the background, and disguised as a
finger-smudge".

A work-in-progress...

AQUIFER

in the arc
above my daydreams
i saw fireworks in blood
sketching out the profile
of forgotten saints

as the pulse of my apartment walls
traded sleep for coins of permanence
and trucks down the street
blasted chambers into concrete hearts

I thought of winter and
poured another rakia

visions
silouhette of visions
visions and rumors of visions
never stopping at the door
swirling on in
eddies of uncontested color

the color of madness
in plain shoes
finding their way from sidewalk to window
and slinging the days back from
when she had time for my lies
allowing me graceful exits from
my own failed sermons and
this plaster prison

i see for once that
time is loaded into copper jackets
waiting in clocks and computer screens
to open up anywhere
on the chance to grieve

as the passing boom of
car-stereos below my window
thunder up the glory of speeding youth
and crash in beautiful terminus
the curves and whispered bend
of saturday night into no tomorrow
there are wishes and

blankets that need folding
cupboards to stock and
voice-mail reminders
that pick at my skin like constant divorce

but i swim in the exit stream

to sheer linen flags
over summer yards
where radios and picnics
steep themselves in the
eyes of a thousand boys and girls
shaking off the incense and intimidation

under the ribcage was worst
though it didn't show and
you could walk it off
eventually

to the creek
down to the banks
under the elms and
into the shade of uncertainty
with a crumpled pack of
menthol courage

i saw lightning

trains roared and hawks circled
although these days I haven't
had to dodge either one

and I often wonder
as I wait for traffic lights to change
what the Iroquois word for surrender was

as 15 year-old tabby cats
thread my ankles
in figure-eights
Tuesday morning repeats itself

in tongues of persistance
barbed and fireproof
from the walls of variety
though here is a pattern

to blend into the hardwood
and stay in the kitchen
where no one speaks of
silouhette stains
under the sink

though lights across
the street change floor to
floor and wink through their curtains
at me tapping out a smile
on this keyboard of sparks
and deliverance.