continuity

breaking my chest and igniting the
long fuse of memories
The million white moon rises never go
numb to my senses.
I sit on the limb of an oak
paddling through my mind
a silent night
last October
I removed my shirt while
stumbling through an Indian burial ground.
I breathed in the cold
let the moisture escape from my chapped lips.
The names on the graves resonated through me
their names, carved in stone:
Huyana Imala.........................
Anaba Pakwa..........................
the unbearable weight of ignorance
tugging on my shoulders.
I teared up. shivered,
letting the alcohol march in my veins.
Another night I spend inebriated
with my wandering thought
Drinking wine under a canopy of leaves
hiding from the moon light.

The fluidity of things

When you escape death
such as a swiftly moving MACK truck sliding in your direction -or-
A 22. rifle being fired by your little brother
(You see the bullet split the earth by your feet)

Escaping death may mean recovering after chemo or it may be
finding peace after heart break.

Whatever it is though, the response is usually a subtle laughter

-with that being one of the purest substances on earth
you find that simple truth to be the most calming after such storms.

But your emotions are like the ocean: They will always fold and change
and curl into themselves. They may wear different masks,
but the soul will forever remain the same.

-Come watch as the persistent ocean ebbs and flows for eternity
Making death both enivitable and impossible.

It all falls

Is greatness found in a bottle of Gin?
Or how about in an Opium den?
Is it the Wormwood then?

The electrical charge from these drugs has
created art as beautiful and grotesque as nature itself.
You see Poe- A strungout genius-high on opium-engraving
our own desires for just one kiss of amontillado
Van Gogh-with an absent ear- drinking absinthe-
pressing out images-bringing to life-
our cradled fears
And you see my grandfather at nine a.m.
drinking his martini and talking about labor relations
at Candlestick Park
slowly uncovering the truth to me
Showing me that being great
is really about falling apart.

The terrible truth

There goes this girl
She walks right past
With legs like totem poles
All carved up with muscle and lotion
Legs man
I would do anything to be those boots
Black leather that crawls up her eternity of skin

And I'm wondering...
Where the hell are the national geographic photographers
and why aren't the zoo keepers placing bids
Because this creature makes Helen of Troy look like
Athlete's foot.

And as I look across the street
I see a hundred guys with
dropped jaws and tilted necks

One man in his late seventies catches my eye
and we both start laughing
then we stop.
And then we start again

Because we know
that things will never change
And, of course, they never have.

A Luta Continua

At thirty thousand feet
I tear through the sky at five hundred
Headed cross country
On this American Airlines flight where
Wings like eagles, soar over the
Patchwork of agriculture

I get my cranberry & club soda,
The hot towel and the skymall mag
I pour the micro bottle of gin
The drink sizzles

Before numbing, before taking off my shoes,
I look around the first class section
And I see nineteen other white men
Most of them wear suits, some wear
Sweater vests with ties

I raise my plastic cup, drink half of it
And press the button that lets me recline

And as the African-American stewardess
Brings me my
Air tight pretzels and peanuts,
The club sandwich,
And a few credit card offers,

I think about how twenty of the twenty
Around me are white males
And not black, brown, red or yellow
I think back to my teens when my best friend
Didn’t get the job because the owner was racist

I think about, Malcolm, Martin, Emmet, Harriet, Huey, Rosa
And all the others that have laid down
A foundation for all of us to walk on
And now I fly with a class of white
Knowing that the ground is growing
Stronger one day at a time. And I can’t help but
Feel the turbulence shaking my brain
From one cloud to the next
This is going to be a long flight!

I see the sweat stains under the woman’s long sleeve
And I think privately
While setting down my drink
How long until we can ALL just
Push a button
Sit back, and enjoy the flight?

Weight for Me

One last time, you scan
The hotel room,
Making sure you have everything
before you go to your meeting,
where you will decide
how much pollution
can be hidden in the rivers.
And you will hear lobbyists
for the companies
and enviromentalists
for the planet
But you check under the blankets
and in the bathroom
for something
you may have forgotten:
your self...

Eugene in 1965

It was damn near midnight
As a black woman walked into the
Convenient store on Franklin Boulevard
She was singing Billie Holiday's "Strange Fruit"
And the clerk glared at her when she walked in.
She looked around the store to kill time
And to wait for the long line to die down

After a minute she approached the counter
And ordered a pack of Newport’s
But the man continued to glare
He was six feet tall and White
He looked down at her and said
Sorry, we’re all out of Newport’s
But she could see them right there

So she asked for a pack of Parliaments
And he said they were out of those too

In disbelief
She looked him up and down
And said thank you
She walked out of the store
And got into her Plymouth
Her husband
Who was disabled said
Did you get your smokes babe?
And she said
No, they were all out.

The trouble is...

She fell into my tribe of thoughts
like rain
F
A
L
L
I
N
G
assimulating like rain does
into rivers or streams
One flicker of thought will destroy me
A poison that enters my pores
like breath
Love is so easy when it is needed
I turn to her and speak
The trouble is...
there is no "she"
There is only me
alone in my attic
reading letters
of lost
loved ones

So it goes...

I told Death to wait outside
But he protested
for it was raining.
I was with a client, though,
about to rap up a 3 year
relationship. There was no
more need for me, she said.

She was finally happy, and her
connection with her father
was better than ever.
But
I wasn't ready.
Because
in some strange way, this girl,
who held no degrees in my field,
actually
had something to teach.
Like one last life-saving lesson
that would clear up everything else.
But the clouds remained,
she said nothing.
And as she closed the door
I could no longer hear myself think

For Death kept whining
implying that he
was ready for our walk.

While studying

In the library
you can hear
the buzz from the rows of florescent lights,
the pages turning 200 feet away,
and the sniffles that travel from
one scholar to another

But you can't hear the screams
that erupt out of bombed nations
"IN THE NAME OF GOD!"

We can only read about this
with a thoughtful silence
until it crawls into
our own beds.
Where will we sleep then?

Art or Funds?

This...poetry...rash
it. don't...bring in...the cash
it's more like...a scab
That won't heal
a word game
This chase of fame
Won't last
Like a sick child in Afghanistan
Yet...I...Keep feeding
the flame

oh lessons

It's easy to be grateful
When your stomach is full,
Your health is top shelf,
or when the poems float
in like fleets of sails
But true contentment
will withstand
a terminal disease
and three months in the
florescent hospital.

Authority

The men with their words
play the games
those men
Always the same,
"License and Registration"

The badge shines thin
And the recipient
was never interested
in a ticket

But the men with the guns
Hold the rights to your fun

And you go home Drained
They drive away
feeling the same...

Northbound

Four of us were headed
North on the Five
And I was getting lost
in the night sky
sitting shotgun
and listening to Dylan's whine
Until I noticed the enormous
Harvest moon and suddenly
we slowed from fifty to park
on the side
Silence fell upon
us
And that lasted for the rest
of our drive

Work

We try to sleep all the way
to another existence
But we don't recognize
that, in work,
our solution lies

So complacency
swallows the day

And pretty soon
We'll all be dead
Just a flavour
on the
Monster's Breath

Beyond Words

It was as if the words just floated on a thin layer of his memory. Joel sat outside, at a café, eating a sandwich and listening to his mind peel apart, layer by layer. It was a simple day, with sun, pollution, and pedestrians. Joel watched the people move by like cattle. He wanted to speak to them. He wanted them to share his misery. But they wore smiles, for the most part, and they seemed separate, like cliques in high school. These words though, this sentence, kept repeating. Repeating like a nine to five job. Over and over again, these words recycled through his dusty memory. He swallowed a bite of his sandwich and tasted nothing. It hadn’t hit him until now, but he had been chewing on this one sentence for three days. He recalled her saying it to him. It was late, after some wine, on her front steps. He grabbed her hand, and she twitched. She looked him in the eyes and said it. He instantly froze. Joel could grasp no meaning, and he didn’t want to ask, because he was proud of his ability to understand.
He choked down the words a few more times, then stood up. He placed his tip next to his crumb-filled plate, a balanced dollar, resting between the pepper and the salt. He walked the eight blocks to Val’s home with no thoughts, just those words. A knock on the door echoed through the covered porch and into his ears. Her roommate answered wearing his black business suit. He said firmly, “Val is not here, she left to California for two weeks.” Joel blinked at him for a long period of time. He said, “Okay,” then turned around and saw the front steps. He walked down those steps, and then back by the café. In mid-stride, he glanced at the table he was seated at, searching for the dollar he had left, but it was gone. And on his walk home, he saw the most beautiful half moon suspended in the stars, and for that moment, he understood life without words.

Simple

My Grandfather
Harvested a simple life
On Hundreds of acres in Iowa
And the sounds of his diesel engine
Planted rows of corn
Which grew
Over bad parenting
and past his property line

And when my mother
turned eighteen
and dated my dad
My grandfather
Buried most of her belongings
Next to some horses
That he had once
cared for.

Waiting is Wasting

The rain slowly fell to the sidewalk like little bombs.
But, there were no deaths,
only a few wet individuals who chose not to drive.
And of course, the air became ripe
and the healights flickered on.

People stared through windows,
at shiny roads, with no intention of
leaving their heated homes, where cupboards
overflowed
with canned and bagged foods.

But the trees, the trees were smart.
They simply remained under the everchanging clouds
Drinking Down the Rain,
Preparing themselves
For
Summer's unforgiving Sun.

Haiku

Picnic in the park
The birds are singing
A bum throws up

Colorless

The young boy swam at the bottom of a river
Under the heavy gray sky
Under a V of geese
Under his father’s fly leader
The water was cold and dark
But the boy would not surface

The A’s played their first game today
Canseco hit one into the grand stands
Oakland went wild
Spilling popcorn and sticky beer

The father sat in front of his black and white TV
Watching the game
Yelling for his kid to come see the replay
But the boy would not surface

Indian Removal Act

Oh,
Well hello Mr. Andrew Jackson.
How’s that collection of belts?
You know, the ones made from the skin
Of my ancestors.
I thought they might be wearing down by now
What say we dig up the rest of your bones?
And drag you across the twelve hundred miles of tears
You know, that wonderful trail, full of water
And fruit.
I know you meant well
But I got this new pick-up, and I really want to show you
Some of that beautiful country that
You haven’t seen for so long.
Here let me grab this leg
And tie it to my hitch.
Yeah, that’s better.
I know you aren’t alive
You’re just bones and hair,
So don’t cry.
Yeah, it’s just,
This has to be done.

Nothing Personal

And then there's that feeling
Where you're at work
and one of the cooks recites
a
vulgar
racist
joke
And for a moment
You feel superior to a
man
twice your age
And it reminds you
of the first time
your parents fucked up
and how you realized
That they
were
no longer
Gods.

The bird

A beautiful Robin twirled
Through the motionless day
Chirping Ancient tunes
Getting drunk off berries
Until it slammed into my window

A good friend

She slept on my couch for what felt like a lifetime,
But totaled two weeks. She never made me breakfast,
and she tore apart my living room.
I don't want rent money, or even the blankets washed.
I just want a Goddamn omelette
With a glass of orange juice.

One Writer's World

Hello,
Ich heisse Nate, and I have decided to post my writing. I will have to admit, computers are not my favorite invention. But, I am trying to tap into this alternative world for a moment. If you have any suggestions or comments, please feel free to do what you do. I encourage all of you to keep writing, and spreading peace.