jukebox

 

kenny gave us the music man

and dolly the colored coat

 

time in a bottle wasn’t meant for jim

it was just a song he wrote

 

some said it was elvis forever

as the king of rock n roll but who could know his majesty

was spinning out of control

 

peter, paul and mary

sang dylan’s blowin’ in th’ wind

as the beatles did it all for us

with a little help from their friends

 

those years all past too quickly

and are now forever gone

even neil, the solitary man

returned to brooklyn roads, his home

 

the statlers wrote of monuments

in washington d c

mccartney climbed on jonathan’s wings

and crashed into the apple tree

 

mac showed us a little ghetto life

james took us up on the roof

the oak ridge boys went into a saloon

to down some hundred proof

 

jimmy smashed electric guitars

while janice sang bobby mcgee

rick’s plane tumbled from the sky

he said no garden party for me

 

kris and willie inhaled their weed

said it make their throats feel good

but jimmy should never light my fire

in mr. roger’s neighborhood

 

a song could go on forever

about the singers i’ve never known

and one by one they’ve said goodbye

and turned to go back home

 

where have all the flowers gone?

that’s the question pete seeger asked

i guess with old songs everyone

to that great juke box of the past

 

 

open only on monday

 

words wrap around my tongue

like a cellophane wrapper wrinkled and crushed

while copper pennies group together

after being spent too many times in too many places

 

i never cared for the smell of root beer or licorice

in the corner candy store where i filled my pockets

with round striped peppermint slash chocolate pieces

that nobody else wanted anyway

 

that’s how the excuses started

and validation was easy when dealing with penny candy

on a saturday when nobody was in school anyhow

and the grocer overcharged for bread

 

monday was coming, it always did

and emptied pockets were comforting and warm

when repentance was behind me for another day

of solitude and peace and promises that i would never do it again

i did

 

and now i can only hear you on mondays

and even then its only in my head

where your words wrap around my hungry tongue

like a cellophane wrapper wrinkled and crushed

 

i hear your smile calling to me

while copper pennies group together

after being spent too many times in too many places

just like the memories i used to open

only on monday

 

 

today i need a guitar

 

today i need a guitar

to hold in my hands

one with a simple tune that sounds like life

when the melody was not yet certain

and the words  of my song not born

 

today i need to know that life

like guitar strings

is born when pulling at one end

and pushing at the other

 

there is a beach waiting

a sky that seems impatient

garbage cans overflowing

and amber colored lights hovering

like french umbrellas over prostitutes

 

today i need today

filled with hope and dreams

before it’s too late

to hold my guitar

or the memory of your smile

 

 

payson

 

it was just a little town

to the north then to the west;

where people lived and died for more years

than even an old man could remember.

 

it hadn’t rained

and her thin cloth jacket smelled of dust

—probably from yesterday—

or some recent wednesday.

 

she brought lively stories

to help pay for the food she needed…

and with her hands she drew circles

to show me the moon.

 

her life was more chapped than her lips

and her hair, in need of a brush,

had scattered in more directions

than the clouds on a stormy day.

 

it was just a little town

and still there were people

who had forgotten how to smile

in the busyness of their empty days.

 

“ain’t rained for a spell.”

she told me,

knowing i was an outsider.

“guess I’d better wash my hair again.”

 

removal of the tree

 

the tree is gone

today they took it away to die alone in a deserted orchard

lemon trees once produced yellow balls there

until one day the land was crushed

 

by a big yellow machine not related to the lemons

it’s heavy blade raped the soil with each full scoop

like a fat man turned loose at a free banquet

 

the coyotes cried before leaving, they never liked lemons anyway

but home was home and they wanted to stay amid the lemon trees

until the yellow machine came and took the last tree away

 

then they shook their heads in sorrow

and wept with howling, crying from their near-empty bellies for the loss

knowing their young would never see the home they left

 

the tree is gone

with one last painful look back the coyotes know it is true

heavy black smoke rose from the big yellow machine

as it burped and bellowed a baritone song

 

and the land they always wanted to keep soft was transformed

to a hard smooth floor more bitter than lemons

 

 

rest with me

 

on a wooden porch looking out to sea
won't you sit for awhile and rest with me

when the evening falls and the sky grows gray
we'll wait until dark then together we'll say...

rest with me...always and forever, rest with me...

 

when the clouds roll in and the sun has gone

and the nights are short and the days are long

 

when the ocean waves have stopped rolling in

we’ll hold hands together and say again

 

rest with me...always and forever, rest with me...

 

on the wooden porch our old rocking chairs

give great comfort as we sit and stare

 

at the feather beds forming in the sky

that give us a purpose, a reason why

 

rest with me...always and forever, rest with me...

i love you...always and forever, rest with me...

i see angels in the sky, rest with me…

 

 

sad eyes 

 

i hadn’t seen such sad eyes since san francisco

the night the rainstorm caused them to tear

wind blowing hard

brushing mascara in places she never would have

 

that night her eyes were different

looking away in search of a safe haven

a place where pain could lay under her hair like a pillow

and fear was kept from the room by the scent of stale perfume

 

only an effort on my part allowed our eyes to meet

and then only after trailing them

like hungry sparrows trail helpless butterflies

catching them in mid flight, holding, swallowing

 

never were another’s eyes held so tightly by mine

as the night she died

i knew they were sadder than when she took the bus to monterey

at least she had her own seat and hadn’t forgotten how to smile

 

the red dress wasn’t suitable and the coffin was too big

but they still had a place to lay her down

she always said she would never fit in this world

turns out she was wrong

 

 

salvation army

 

she wore purple because she liked it.

hanging stiffly on the store rack,

yellow goodwill tag with smudged blue ink,

was it a three or five?

she argued for three—willing to pay five—she did.

her breasts had followed the alphabet

from a to b to c to d

and settled back on c

after some of the air had escaped her life

and left her haggling over purple dresses.

somehow salvation was unreachable

and the army refused to go home,

but she had purple swatches to mend the holes

and fingertips that blended too well

with gunnysack purple and bruised memories.

 

she remembered life in yellows and oranges,

bright colors that complimented the sun.

but that was when she dreamed while still awake

and wished without a penny.

purple happens to life. 

 

and it did.

 

 

san francisco, sixty-eight

 

she wore springtime in her hair, san francisco, sixty-eight

while the world collapsed around her, gettin’ high ‘neath the golden gate

 

fortune cookies served in china town were bittersweet and never true

but springtime filled the city air, in a city built for two

 

when he looked into her hungry eyes, he saw a future they couldn’t share

a foreign war was calling, she knew he’d leave his body there

 

so they kissed beneath the golden gate and made love beneath the stars

where the presidio saw the water and brave soldiers plotted wars

 

and now a lifetime later, she plants bougainvillea in the ground

remembering san francisco, sixty-eight, and the trumpet’s cruelest sound

 

 

seedless

 

most people said it was much too soon

roses had not yet wilted from the first frost

fruit hung like planets on apple trees

abandoned pumpkins were still ghoulishly orange

 

everything lived except her

 

sometimes november strangles lonely souls

when the ground opens up too easily as if by invitation

and no one stands by the gate to keep innocence out

 

there was no warning that she couldn’t turn back

except on the plastic bottles she dropped by her bedside

 

years have passed since yesterday

laughter visits on occasion like a wayward stranger

in want of a meal and a place to lay his body down

 

but there is no safe haven where memories dare to tread

 

wilted roses kneel at the gravesite

a memorial to a beautiful life so quickly passed

thorns explode, guarding her as a sentry protecting royalty

 

but the earth remains soft and fallow

 

seedless

except for the soul she planted there

 

 

seven steps

 

there were seven steps
coming down from the wooden porch
to the sidewalk
that wound between the massive trees

they creaked a little

though no more than the wheels

turning in my head

while going nowhere

 

i was younger then

and counting steps didn’t matter

until she died

and laid like a rag doll in her padded bed

 

i don’t remember what she wore

just that her hair was soft

and she wore a smile

like i had never seen before

 

her last ride was solemn

and only those who knew her

cried loudly with no tears

the others waited

 

there are seven steps

going up to the wooden porch

from the sidewalk

that winds between the massive trees

 

they still creak

louder now than before

i remember that day

when the steps ached like my heart

 

 

pas de bourrée

 

who’s that dancing in my head

leaping and bouncing through the vacated spaces of my mind?

tap dancing in ballerina shoes

in an awkward pas de bourrée  across the hollow hardwood floor

while with constant pounding of his heavy hammer

a workman beats disappearing nails into forgiving lumber

 

who’s that talking in my head?

saying dreadful things i shouldn’t hear about my languid life

as auburn crickets chirp loudly

rubbing their forewings together while expecting better times

and a woodpecker taps on a tree trunk, knocking for insects

scurrying in crevices past once-thick bark

 

who’s that cluttering my mind

with needless facts about fictional men and roads that don’t exist

while the annoying drip of a burnished brass faucet

dribbles loudly on the pristine white rose that never grew

and the keys of an ergonomic keyboard

curved like the palm of her hand are abused with an unhappy fist?

 

can i silence the scream of desperation

and listen to voices other than those raging unbridled in my head

in the battleground where carnage lays bountiful

and the colliding sounds of life explode like grapes under my feet?

one of me answered this way and the other that

but it didn’t matter, a single blast finally brought silence to my world