How to Teach Your Kids to Be Smart About Money

time     jars
most that when a dollar
on the sharpness of upturned wheels
one that as a changed child
in itself     the screams
time     jars
that make up     for the whistle that's now smashed
family for others     old     by some act of terror
all the lives     so strung out back over time
     machinery at which hogs moved
     expense patio on the desert
     tooth pits choosing
but now complete     animal carcass adventures
time     jars
make game identifying
all the lives     will grow from this
not even fire     slipped on the blood
safe under the umbrella of a present time
once hooves     will grow from this
an open pitted scream
o bury it you'll hear it yet
your hands     grab the rail
the train coming at you     any moment

originally published in Milvia Street (2010)

Freud's Cigar

the heat you engender when you cut deep into the bone
its marrow imaginary as a subterranean river
dream of the voices that have kept you waiting
deep inside the meat of your computer
electrical waterways passages of zeroes and dots
open socket to a paradise that seems too wet to touch
and a clown's nose at the end of the trail

     congratulations kid
     you're in heaven

painted on the inside of your eye 
is an image of the empire state building
in thirty or so years it'll have been there a century
it's still in front of your eyeball as you sleep
as you walk your leggy poodle round and round it
which leg the dog sniffs which leg to use
everything's a fire hydrant sometimes
and the butcher shop's closed
and all the loose bones are locked inside and safe
so which leg to lift now
which leg to lift

Originally published in Bay Area Poets Seasonal Review, Spring/Summer 2010

How to Wake Up Early

maybe it was light
reflected against my glasses in the early morning
but in the mirror the pupils of my eyes
had taken a feline shape
a straight line     widened slightly at the center
vertically down the middle of my irises

     i tilted my head to the side
     inconclusive

looked again
the pupils had widened into circles
all the leonine adventure gone

     if i'd believed in the vision at first
     i'd had been relieved

as it was i sighed
no shape shifting this time
another chance at a new exciting life
gone like a worn-out toothbrush

the only part of the adrenaline left
the memory of a startled look on my face

(2010)

Aardvark's Tale

like clouds out of a seamless sky she floats
in her peasant dress a full foot over subway tiles
aarvark and ant both raise heads to listen
trade eyes the ant eyes don't fit but aardvark
sees colors a train goes by into darkness
he thinks ice cream     she digs his shades
and she gets off at the next station
                                    past night
the day is down to holes in the sky / stars
and the spurs of latter-day businessmen hang blind in a corner
the train bounces     streetlights try
to mock the slack in light and cars
pass by     lit small

this light is constricted
he grabs time back
he can still see her heels     even though he's
regained his eyes he retains the vision
let's say laughing sam's dice again
motivating inside his eyeballs
and she passes by before him again
and he walks along beside her agreeing
to get off together at the next station
past streetlights     and blindness
he looks down
             to see
his shadow under a streetlight
watching both of them

from Thebes (1991)

Telegraph Avenue Relic

i've walked down this street so many times
that they've set sidewalks over my footprints

even the pavement
is more transient than i am

i remember languages these buildings used to speak
in the stone ages before this century
hello black cat on the psychedelic poster
your green eyes are still following me in their madness
as old buildings resurrect across your path
and i continue my conversations with you

ohlone earth     vaquero earth
student earth for over a century
all these earths would touch the soles of my shoes
if i could step through
they layers of footprints people have put down
beyond the fewer than seventy years
of my own

(2011)

Professionalism

i want to
get drunk

dead

this halfways water won't hold me
want to
go to the sleaziest alkie bar in san francisco
place even hookers won't go
professional place
watch some guy die of a heart attack on the floor
turn back
to my drink
get ruined my badge of professionalism made
on someone else's death
get drunk after proving
i'm beyond whoredom
drink it damn it drink
now an obligation
as my small patch to hold up
of the vast weight of a professional universe

from Bar Room Ballads (1992)

New Year's

on this day of beginnings
nobody cares to begin anything

everybody's automobile has a hangover
all locomotive dreams outmoded

even the confetti has unwrapped itself along the streets
rolled after itself down the sewer grates home to bed

the sun rolls over sick
an icepack of fog lessens the pain

i am out looking for you     new year
all the stores are closed

have you forgotten
all the promises we made each other

last night
when we were both drunk?

from Bar Room Ballads (1992)

Lady at the Bus Station

she was about my age
about thirty
about to remember     where she was going
unless the going was unpleasant
then she'd just talk
and once she was sitting
you couldn't tell the crank
had put a bend in her back
ruby tuesday yesterday

she started on the kid behind her in line
who was wearing a walkman
and after hearing her chatter he lent it to her
to shut her up     and maybe off
she marvelled     probably forgetting
that she'd seen the things before
and put it on and sang along
in a voice made raw and naked
by cigarettes and whiskey

she sang through a few songs
and the line got longer
and she looked back at her followers
and looked bored     stood up     gave the walkman back
and said
               i've got to go to the ladies' room
she left     the bus left
she came out again
trying to remember where she was going
hoping for better companions

from Bar Room Ballads (1992)

Anticipatory Egg

in the small room     of a tin can
on air wheels     made stationary
sleeps a dragon     smoking the afternoon
to dreams

and from his snout
in reflected greenness of the room
the simplicity of his smoke     congests
and the dreams     in the tin room
grow clear

as people walk by the tin can
on a day for a sunny day strut
inspired by the air and the fullness of a life
not all of them want to comprehend
the dragon     dreams     again
of hatching

from The Troubles (1993)

Urban Teenage Dream

all the chores are
the dinosaurs are
the red
bores are downstairs
in momma

so the view
in the hour
and sleep are
the time of night
of reality     of car

from Thebes (1991)

The Truth About Cars

i've always thought most cars are left as eggs by garbage trucks
out in the boonies
beyond rats
beyond city dumps
and far enough from people that no one will notice them
and when they hatch they're little things
like multicolored roaches
only meaner
that run all over fields and shear down crops
sythesizing the juice into gasoline
until they're big enough for highways
and their gasoline glands are gone
then they all crawl off to the city
and gang up in the streets like herds of dragon armadillos
meditate in masses behind traffic lights
and swarm in hordes once the lights have changed
frustrating     the few city people
not pure drivers under the carapace

most people here
think most cars are kept
in individual homes in the suburbs
that's not true:
once their teem down city streets is done
they shrink
smaller than when they were hatched
and creep inside your head
like words from advertisements
that continue
their motorized mumble
until you buy yourself a car
that can join them

from Thebes (1991)

coffee mends

coffee mends
     the holes in morning's curtains

coffee saves
     your eyes at nod of night

death
     where is the coffee you promised me?

from Thebes (1991)

Thebes

now that he's quieted they say he's blind
his mind blurred     their quarrel
having closed itself behind him swallowed him
and satisfied emitted him mostly undigested
plagued and poxed and they say pitted of eye
with walking stick half off on the road to thebes

too much acid?     yeh     must a been
he's sure burnt now but i don't remember him
any other way     the boy's brain is gone
and if you remember him as seer
don't mention it to us     war?
what war?     have another drink we're trying to forget

all his followers they say have changed themselves back now
painted back the numbers on the houses
of the city he once redesigned
cut their locks     locked their doors
and as in distance heat and plague approach
they close their eyes and go about their mothers' chores

From Thebes (1991)

mother got out of whatever game of

mother got out of whatever game of
by
and
the
conversation drifted
(reinforced) dislike of physical
betrayal
our ancestors want us to kill
it's traditional
with his razor
like a dog
make happy
war with desolation
of feet on ground
your knapsack
goodnight
like a dog
your knapsack
goodnight
the fat
palace
goodnight
goodnight
goodnight
in order to live
goodnight

from Thebes (1991)

berserk marathon

berserk marathon
berserk marathon berserk marathon
marathon berserk
ah ooo     berserk marathon
berserk marathon berserk marathon
ah ooo     berserk marathon
try out

try out our ice cream
eat it
try out no fuss
try out our ice cream
eat it     eat it
no fuss marathon

second road is the same
second road is the same
buy some
buy some now

buy     buy    
buy     buy
buy buy buy
buy buy     buy buy
berserk marathon buy
now!

from Thebes (1991)

Notes By the Virgin Mary's Social Worker

mary and i
had a long talk about the baby
she said that she'd seen an angel
or that maybe that had been in a dream
and that she and her old man
had been on the road a long time

she paused
maybe the times could have been better
she said     that way we could have afforded
a better hotel     and maybe the tax collector
would have been easier on us
she said she hoped the baby'd be a lawyer

from Thebes (1991)

Gods Eat My Face

gods eat my face
my face gods eat
gods my face eat
face my gods eat
eat face my gods
gods my eat face
my gods eat face
my gods face eat
face gods eat my
eat face gods my
gods eat face my
my eat gods face
gods face eat my
face eat gods my
eat gods face my
eat my face gods
eat my gods face
face gods my eat
face eat my gods
face my eat gods
gods face my eat
my eat     face gods
my face     eat gods
eat gods     my face

The first line of this poem was a graffito I saw on a wall in south Berkeley.


from Thebes (1991)

The Bed

the squid with the woman's face is on the ceiling again
she sets one of the tentacles into her mouth and licks then
sucks it all the way in and the ceiling implodes
rather than go with it i watch     
an amalgam of colors and shapes
dull at first going brighter later     
i reach up with both arms
pull her down onto my face slip
my tongue into the gap of the cosmos
i have just seen and we are borne up
to the bed where i am suddenly alone 
and the shapes of the ceiling will not focus     
i cannot focus on her face or remember it
from what must be previous lives     the room
has become my body and what i see on the ceiling
i also feel and am     i long for such as she is
i close my eyes maybe the image will come in better

green grow the lilacs
i'll show them to you
green grow the lilacs
i'll show them to you

now the bed has widened into a vast white desert in japan
i am digging through the sand for the seven blue potshards
that i can build again into my soul
i have four of them already
the others are within inches of my body
i will find them i will build us up again
both of us

green grow the lilacs
i'll shw them to you
green grow the lilacs
i'll show them to you

from Thebes (1991)

from The Children's Hour

between when     comes that
i hear the patter and the voices
the sound from my descending

the grave alice and edith a whisper
yet i they are

a sudden!     a sudden!
to take to take they enter they climb
they seem their arms
descending the sound from mouse tower
oe'r i a sudden and voices
the grave     a sudden
grave     oe'r i
tell i     their arms
they     seem
oe'r i
the grave
descending

from Thebes (1991)

Earn Big Money Just Weeks From Now

more and more people
are drudgery
independent
one     with
repair

more and more things are
made of these days
observed     everywhere
peeling     chairs
wherever you     there's vinyl

CHORUS:
i like being in charge of my TIME!
i also work part TIME as a teacher!
i want to be able to spend TIME
with my children!
the business has allowed me the opportunity and
TIME
to work at home and still spend TIME
with them!

asked why     he decided
he says     there's a need
actually     most areas
never have enough people

he     works
charges seven dollars per inch
plus fifteen dollars per hour
his latest job so far was the local
three hours to complete

CHORUS:
i like being in charge of my TIME!
i also work part TIME as a teacher!
i want to be able to spend TIME
with my children!
the business has allowed me the opportunity and
TIME
to work at home and still spend TIME
with them!

from The Troubles (1993)

From A Dream

last night i dreamed i was
stuck in a room full of sleeping old men
and that it was the house where i grew up
and that i knew most of them
as my own mediocrities

the moon shown through one long high window
i marvelled at its yellowness before clouds overcame it

i stepped carefully between the men's spread mattresses
mattresses everywhere
these old guys two or three to a mattress
all asleep     half of them snoring
as i tip-toed in the dark until i got to the front door

where the rhythms of their snores
paced the motion of my hand
as i reached for the doorknob in the weird yellow light

there was just enough space     to swing the door open
and stand in the face of the cold alien air
i saw the lawn     the street
the old sycamore that i remember 
from as early as i can remember
how quiet out there     deep three a m
i stepped out closed the door and the cold air took me
the snores seemed so warm     i could smell their breath
and taste their breath in my own mouth even away from them
nothing moved     even the squirrels were asleep
blocks away i could hear a car running

from Auto Bio (2010)

July Rain

this is the hour that sticks to the skin

cuckoo clocks droop
over stones
in the midwife's garden

drool drips down
from the dog star

captured mice are photographed inside your eye
and can't get out
for the pressure behind them


from The Troubles (1993)

Santa Cruz

my grandfather's eyes are covered with shells he
has his mouth open
inside there are ocean sounds
they murk in his beard
my aunt refuses to hear them
and hides in her bedroom watches television
her children play on the floor
tear toy wagons apart
put the pieces together again
making small furry animals


from Thebes (1993)

That You Like It That Way

the real loser may be a thief

do i enter the room?
do i?     do i?
hello clock
hello plate
hello chainsaw
what's for dinner?

theatre

the wolfman enters stage left
puts an entire bungalow on his head
sings shakespeare
juggles a whale

cut to the foreign legion
and a random national anthem

that you snort coffee
     from rolled-up salvadoran peasants
that your cat doesn't like you
     even when you feed it
that you treasure the wine of your youth
     only when it's vinegar
that the iron in your shirt is only instant starch
that you're your own mortician's ultimate fantasy
that you like it that way
that     the chess game     on the wall
has arms and you think tells the time
to fight for you

theatre

the wolfman is someone you were
the chainsaw is your voice a year from now
your shirt your chest
nailed together with invisible flesh
the mansion     in which you plot
is only part of the wolfman's left earring
and below his feet
you can hear the jungle
scream
when the creatures intuit that you
too
were born there

from The Troubles (1993)

The Last Surge of Romance

at the end of its life a world is conscious
of not being in love
stars zooming away like romantic mistakes
scientists carrying fish in their armpits
numbering bombs like bottles of mouthwash
while entire streets
stick their noses into junctions of tall buildings
and inhale deeply

my hands
can't find your buttons anymore
have you sold them?
how much did you get?
the street
is cold to all offerings
the choice between apology and war
is made on broken down streetcars

on those steel hands rings of flesh grow
the rings throb unmercifully
grow like worms copulating with themselves
they swell
but cannot scream
there is no mouth to them
instead we watch the skies
for hints of mehanical romance


from The Troubles (1993)