Journey of Wishes no efile

EMPTY SIDEWALKS

EMPTY SIDEWALKS 

Empty city sidewalks

Light gushes out of the streetlamp 

like water from the faucet 

and bathes the stone-cold midnight sidewalk 

with its fluorescent spray, 

while the parched earth wait 

for the new dawn. 

No date. But it is making a note of the drought even back in 1978 or 79 whenever this poem was written.

THE LINGUAL ARCH OF THE RIVER AND THE SEA

THE LINGUAL ARCH OF THE RIVER AND THE SEA

The river is a tongue leading into the dark

whispering ocean of many tongues 

The mouth of the river is interlocked in an embrace 

with one of the many mouths
of the ocean

The polygamous ocean ' tongues ' rivers everywhere
Those mouths exchange the souls of those 

who are indifferent to living 

Those who slipped into the grey snags 

of willow along the river shore 

They slid down thru the roots of the willow 

into the river to that long journey downward 

The river is a molten tongue

carrying them downward to the sea
The words on the tongue of river 

are words of all those who still wait to speak 

The ocean is tongue 

The river is tongue 

They share the same mouth 

To speak they each need separate mouths 

Women have two mouths and one tongue 

Men have two tongues and one mouth
Mouths and tongues each need a place to lie in 

before they can speak 

1979  summer

added 2/2017

The Lingual Arch of the River and the Sea (dream) 

Faces

Faces

I have many faces
my faces as you
ask me to stay, my faces
as you ask me to leave, make
me warm with love
love, change I
follow you, my
faces upon the mountain flank,

my faces under the stars,

your warm lips intertwine with mine,

your tongue enters my mouth
my faces
there in the moonlight, 

there in the meadow
smell of musk, summer dust
poison oak and bay laurel 

as we talk about living, 

my faces search yours,

the faces we share melt
like waxen masks 

in moonshadow
we melt into each other's bodies
on the path many
faces intertwine
in the moonlight.

1979

added 2/2017

Morning Poem

Morning Poem

Stiff eyes search out another cup of coffee

lids scratch across the surface of nausea 

flies crawl in on my skin, sun sweats it 

my hands so stiff i can barely write 

as last night catches up with morning 

I'm too tired to wake up, it's too morning 

to go back to sleep 

as humming birds flit on our voices

1979

added 2/2017 minor changes

Of That You're Certain

Of That You're Certain

I am like a water pipe that freezes and thaws 

until the stress breaks the pipe 

the pipe is my body, the thaw is my heart 

the freezing is the restrictions of our love

The ground is unstable under my feet
and I am afraid of falling on frozen earth
the path is always forward
it is not a hopeful path
soon it will freeze and the pipe will burst

The frost is black and white
the hoar frost is white
the black frost is a killing frost
and you are water that flows thru the pipe
you are night that freezes the pipe
you are the sun that thaws it over and over again

1979

added 2/2017

Mother Simplex

Mother Simplex

I taste the lie upon my tongue
martyred flesh
life is a breath of...
and the images flash before me
mother's meat to be crucified

She barks like a dog
wolf mother with fear in her voice
as she slowly dies

1979

added 2/2017

The Swim

The Swim

Harvest of spring and midnight swims

in snakeskin

she breaks star ripples in a pool 

of moon fungus water

Water fingers caress her body
amniotic birthing
water thru spread fingers
water thru splayed toes
the toes of childhood 

like frogs, full breast stroke
thigh frog-kick shatters moon, star reflections

float in the water, breathing sea mammals 

we exhale into the water 

we are water, we are water

She swims in liquid night wrapped around her body 

thousands of tongues lick and lash her 

she stands by the pool
cement slurps up the water that streams down 

her curve of spine, belly, nipples erect

the water licks down

down

1979

added 2/2017

men in the landscape

men in the landscape

there are those who would stay on the land 

until the land takes them back again 

it is their mother

there are those who were once firmly rooted 

who wish to escape and fly above it 

it is still their mother

it holds to them and brings them back into the fold 

when they love women 

it is the mother

they are the ones who resist the hardest

their death brings them back again 

it has been and always will be

the great mother 

1979

added 2/2017

Is It Time?

Is It Time?

Depression sets in

it is nearer time to go than to stay
amid the stars and
sliced segments of orange moon

lips full of envy
and i have teeth to caress
this blood orange
bittersweet

listless limbs drape
over the sounds of a ticking clock

that melts down too slowly for time

it sets in for days 

memories of

my hands absently strokes my breast 

is that you i hear?
no? then melt down the clock faster 

it is not time yet.

1979

added 2/2017

MEMORY

MEMORY

Rings on trees 

signify the passing of years

the pale wide rings dividing the wet years 

from dark dense wood when the rains don't come 

I'm looking-down at my fingernails & it occurs to me

that there are growth rings embedded on them too, 

where growth measured in weeks, not years 

What drought is measured on my nails? 

Is it a loss of the heart?

Or a loss of love? 

A memory lapse? 

Loss of the poet? 

Loss of protein?  

Or a loss of fear? 

Maybe ridicule? 

Or antibiotics?

A pregnancy?

Memory gain? 

Weight loss?

Or water?

Drought?

?

1979

added 2/2017

very minor changes to make the tree shape work

Maelstrom

Maelstrom

The grinding stream, the maelstrom 

is a way to the land of the dead 

dilate yr mind beyond the unbearable 

it is not a forgiving universe 

it is inexorable as the stars in their courses 

where no sparrow could fall unnoticed 

for there are seeds which propagate 

themselves along the jetstream of time 

the mud has lost its cutting edge 

the omphaloessa, the umbilical cord has been severed 

"into water wind has come, into water wind will go" 

time to separate heaven and earth with a sickle

It Is a Part

It Is a Part

it wraps itself around you

a drop of water splats the top of your head
where the part is 

warm water in the tub
down your cheek it trickles
as you pull the plug
it escapes slowly down
the drain
where it collects in the pipes 

and your sorrow runs underground 

to the briney sea 

taste the tear that bathes the sea 

the tear is salt for your tongue 

to taste

1979

added 2/2017

For Worse, Replies My Friend

For Worse, Replies My Friend

naked you walk
naked you walk
netting is suspended at night from stout cords
stars overhead are the presage of summer
and bright stars

i hold myself here and alone through the mist
lost but not completely
and far out into the dawn the first bird of morning

opens his beak and sings

this dawn is shaped by the sole scream of ecstasy 

and you just stand there free from it 

made free by it

limbs touch the suppleness of a woman
the straightness of a man
now it expresses itself, in control
if we had hope for an excuse, or even love
the apple cuts at your mouth like broken glass
and you lie there like a sick cat in the gutter
while the great bed sighs to itself
i, instead of being dutiful, write letters

the pathology of the life processes is known
as well as the normal
is this an unnamable joy, or a sorrow being named?
there will be some discomfort

1979

added 2/2017

To an Eclipse in the Moon - dark Past

To an Eclipse in the Moon - dark Past

Deep sleep lies down within the well gone dry amid boquet of rags on the carpet

fingers explore and massage the erotic zones of the mind the depths of ecstacy dangle on a phallic cross painted red

Paint it red

Paint it red Lately she has taken to painting the lips of her mouth a fragment of the true cross is lodged within her bones, her breast she sought a reflection of it" but her eyes , they cast no shadow in the mecuriaal glass

The church bells are ringing

The bells of the church

They are ringing

The bleedings begun

The bleedings begun What are those flecks of white so like the stars growing upon her feet?

It is the skin

Skin of the dead

Skin of the dead She must wash it away with her hair , lest it adhere and grow there

Let it grow

Let it grow there He was born(some say he was born) during the full of the eclipse moon the eaten eclipse of dragons blood, and he was a man disguised as himself

The needs of the flesh

Made flesh , proud flesh

Being eaten among you

The blood of the dying

The bleedings begun His fingers make sing to another song of her cunt liquid runs in her veins, liquid fire thrust down deep withtn her she is strung out on beads of lapis and bloodstone sweat trickles down between her breasts, she is liquid in the well liquid night of the stars to melt down the yolk of the moon, half eaten see the silver crest of the cock as it crows for the light of the egg flickering stars witness the ritual cannibalism of cocks egg

Visions of pressed wrinkled

Splintered bloody bone

Crushed beneath the weight

The bleedings begun Her bare feet christen the pine steps as she walks like champagne flowing down from the bow of a boat at baptism clouds pass behind the moon moving with the wind

wind... and the flagellation of trees as they whip at the night air she sits with the wind ,and the moon on the horizon she follows it across the ocean on a breath they speak to each in their own

Behold the body

Visions of the flesh

Being eaten among you

The bleedings begun

Patterns

Patterns

The annual and diurnal patterns hold 

it seems always to be connected with the notion 

that in the savagery of love
the skeleton set in motion collapsed flaccidly 

as we take off from now 

the spider crawled all the way down and delivered him
blue as the star
blue as the gull
the bull headed monster
of the double axe

Body whose hands broke ground for that thrusting head 

years have passed since that autumn

it had promised to be too hot 

but just enough sun warmed them

Pleasant whiteness of pearl barley 

or woman's body, a communal drink 

Antares glows faintly without sparkle 

behind all that maleness of that mulling night.

1979

sounds like another diPrima workshop pome, june?

added 2/2017

She Steps out of the Mirror

She Steps out of the Mirror

she waits
she is always waiting
she was born waiting
waiting to be reborn
she will die while waiting

she lives in the mirror
she sees only the reflections
looking out of the mirror
at the others looking in
at themselves, at her
none knowing which side of the mirror
they stand behing or in front of

so they wait to see
who will move first
to betray the reflection
in the mirror that waits for them

they are frozen

as they wait to see 

if they are reflections 

or merely real

they grow old together
die and are reborn
and still they wait
while looking into the mirror

the mirror ages glass
slumps mercury
peels off
warping their reflections

pieces gone missing
like holes in a painting
cracks appear on the glass
across their faces
still immobile
they wait

silica seeks its own 

as glass returns to sand 

sand in an hourglass 

shifts through time

1979

sounds like a Diane diPrima workshop, if so, then June

added 2/2017

LIGHT

LIGHT 

Light cleaves to walls 
ceilings & floors. 
It sticks to you 
& you can't shake it 
or wipe it off. 
It always comes back looking 
for exposed surfaces to cling to. 
As you crawl out of darkness 
it waits & attaches itself to you 
until you hide to avoid it.
But still it comes—
waiting to be freed
from the darkness
that tempers it.

1979?

The Paper and the Sonoma County Stump

Since I've discovered that I can now backdate my old blog posts that were crammed into the years 2007, and 2008, when I first began blogging, I've been rearranging old posts. However, they no longer have context. So here's a bit on the newspapers I worked for during the 1980s and 1990s, to give you some kickoff perspective.

See also Old Posts, New Posts

The Paper was first launched in 1979 by Elizabeth Poole and Nick Valentine, in Guernewood Park, and later moved to Monte Rio. After Bliss Buys and Joe Leary's Sonoma County Stump folded around 1981, Simone Wilson and I began working for The Paper. Somewhere along the way, it became the West Sonoma County Paper. Nick Valentine, or the new owner, John Boland (of KQED fame) may have changed the name again. John Boland moved The Paper from Monte RIo to Forestville to Freestone, to Santa Rosa and it became the Sonoma County Independent.

It was purchased in 1994 by Silicon Valley-based Metro Newspapers Group (a chain of 10 weeklies: AAN Metro Silicon Valley and Metro Santa Cruz).  Soon after that, I left The Paper, the thrill was gone, micromanagers and myopic editors, and turfy journalists including Gretchen Giles, ran roughshod over us. I didn't survive the politics. The jerk with whom I was sharing darkroom duties (I was on the road a lot in those days) stole my negatives and  job. And that was that.

The Sonoma County Independent morphed into the Northern California Bohemian in 2000, or rather, The North Bay Bohemian. Alas, the archives only date back to November of 1995. I use the same name throughout, though I worked for at least three iterations of the paper. I got some good stories, I learned a lot. For that I'm grateful.

More here on The Paper.    THURSDAY, JULY 28, 2011

Remembering Nick Valentine & Phil Osborn at The Paper

Activist Mary Moore wrote to the Bohemian editor: Your birth was in Monte Rio around 1979 as The Paper and I still have many articles saved from that time. With Nick Valentine as editor and Tom and Elizabeth as publishers, this brave little weekly with beautiful graphics and extraordinary layout (before computers) became must reading for all us counterculture types. It replaced Bliss Buy's previous paper, the Sonoma County Stump as the activist publication, and was one of the reasons that we were so successful in 1980, the first year that we protested at Bohemian Grove. It took us through the early 1980s protests at Rancho Seco, Diablo Canyon and the Livermore labs as well as covering all our doings here at home.

Impossible to find anything online about The Sonoma County Stump. But I found this:

Patrick K. Lanzing, Editor/Photographer/Life StudentSonoma County Stump1972 – 1975 (3 years) Russian River, California
Learned how to run a local-area community newspaper in the beautiful Russian River region of Sonoma County, CA, alongside one of the great unsung heroines of the American Free Press: Bliss Buys (ne: Cochrane). Helped organize a benefit featuring the Jerry Garcia and Robert Hunter Bands. Photographed the Russian River Rodeo and stomped grapes with folks who nowadays own their own wineries. Walked in the redwoods, happy but dirt poor. Wrote stirring editorials and knew my community. Then I went to the big city and got a "real" job.

I found this reference in the March 1978 Oak Leaf: Jerry Garcia Band and Robert Hunter’s band Comfort will be appearing at the Sebastopol Veterans Auditorium on March 22 to do a Benefit for the Sonoma County Stump, a local newspaper. Tickets are on sale now so if you’re interested, go get ’em while they’re still available.

The White Goddess

The White Goddess

you have slept within the worship of the divine child
you have also slept with the white goddess
she has stolen from you your light
she will always steal it from you
you will always give it to her

she is the moon, she waxes and wanes at your touch
she drips liquid from her crescent
she is the old moon going out in the arms of the new moon at dawn

her crescent is the horns of the bull-headed monster in the labyrinth 

she is the rebirth

she may steal your darkness
she may restore your light
she may devour you
she will kill you yet, in her hand 

is the double-bladed axe

you will be reborn from a tear in her eye
you will trickle down her cheek onto her breast
you will evaporate and become frozen salt of the tear
you are the bearer of that name which you have lost

it is not precisely lost 

it is not precisely missing 

and she is dressed in lion skins

1979?

It sounds like a poem from the Diane diPrima workshop in which case it was written in June/

added 2/2017

THE UNDULATION OF DESIRE

THE UNDULATION OF DESIRE

My belly in your hands
undulating 'til it swells as round as the glass float
that broke loose from the fishermen's net
carried by the Japanese current

past the fog shrouded coast of Hokkaido,
past Russia, the Bering Straights,

to the shores of California
where waves deposited it on fine sand.
- a glistening ruby of the sea.

Making a journey up the coastline of your body
my breasts envelop that firm resistance
a soft frothy cradle for your blind mouth
to spill the surgences of the sea in my kelp hair,

Gentle bells, my breasts softly swaying
two windblown tulips
their nipples the center of the flower
- a stamen for your lips.

In the dark, your hands reaching for me
as I sit astride, I am a dancer 

with back arched to the wind.

1979

added 2/2017 this sounds like a first draft of

FISHNET

The red glass float from the fisherman's net

rides the Japanese current past the Russian coast

and the Bering Straits to California

where it glistens like a jewel in the sand.

Making the journey down the coastline of your body,

my breasts cradle your blind mouth.

The essence of the sea spills into kelp hair.

From the net, your hand uncovers precious stones

and the arching dolphins at the crest of the wave

rise in the wind like love's cry.

After the River

After the River

You melt like words on my tongue
bitter pith of lemons
essence of oil to salivate
sweet and sour on the sides
the tip tastes of salt
from the sweat that drips from the eye

Slow bits of dying lie scattered about
like chunks of flesh bitten out of a living whale by sharks
the ten percent loss of body mass is followed by death
the sharks swim on only after they've each eaten their fill
plus the tongue of the leviathan

Devour your flesh live
the essence of being is still there
to share with you in the communal meal
the sweat of salt heightens  your olfactory senses
on the tip of the tongue tastes of ocean

Words almost spoken
rest by the banks on the river tongue
that eddies and swirls around incomplete thoughts
the blossom of the lemon is sweet, honeyed
doesn't prepare the tongue for the fruit

that's why we taste both sweet and sour 

on the same banks of tongue

We add sugar to sweeten the burden

but it's still the same sour fruit

the back of the tongue recieves the bitter pith 

as it journeys to the throat

There is no return to the sweetness
the bitterness of taste is to be sophisticated
like coffee and dry martinis
sweet teeth are for children

The appetite never ceases
tolerance for sugar increases tongue's addictive appetite
we eat each other down and starve from lack of nourishment 

     we are the world's hungry
     see the hunger in our eyes
     the salt, the sweat, the tears 

     to increase and stimulate the taste

We strap on promises we can't keep across the flesh of our tongues 

intolerable links of sweetness across the pith of the lemon
essence of oil escapes from the rind
voilatile into the air we breathe
our nostrils flare and we hunger for more

     we starving bodies 

     we hunger 

     always we hunger 

     for more

1979

added 2/2017

Breath of Wind

Breath of Wind

The death it strikes
the anger it comes
it goes it comes again
like the tide that flows
increasing rhythm of life
its ebbs and flows
Time: time to, go, come again
the pull, the push 

of the moon upon the earth
we are of the earth
we return to it again
we unite, we become the elements
we flow into the oceans 

to nourish the living
the living
it is teneous like death
a breath, we exist
a breath of wind stirs the water
whips it into a frenzy
a breath of wind stirs the water
it evaporates into air
moves the clouds to land
a breath for rain
water completes its cycle on the land
the rain to nourish the living
Water: we are 97 percent water
tissue of the living
to seek it
always the seeking
we are the living.

1979

added 2017

Berries in Winter

Berries in Winter

there is nothing more

red than the color of hawthorn berries 

in winter

berries the size
of bird's eggs against the grey
of last year's grasses and the pale green
of winter sprouts

herring-bone pattern of pines
on steep hillsides
softwoods crocheted on the north slopes

the top of the ridge snakes in and out 

of the barbed wire stretched 

along its surface like strings 

on the neck of a fiddle

the trees on the top of the ridge 

are like a fine Chinese comb 

grooming the fleece of clouds

we live on the western slope 

on the eastern side 

of this mountain.

1979

added 2/2017

Who Pulled the Plug? Clock says 7 after 9

Who Pulled the Plug?

Clock says 7 after 9 

been saying it for days 

gets tired of it but no; one notices

It dosn't know if its A.M. or P.M.
prefers to go round clockwise
but has been known to counter the issue

Now as time stands still
clock gets lonely for internal order
so it waits
(what else can it do?)
clock says 7 after 9.

1979

added 2/2017

The Dichotomy of Edges

The Dichotomy of Edges

and when i walk upon the ridge 

my footstep is uncertain 

the wind is too cool for summer 

and it sweeps up the ridge from the valley below

the valley below the ridge 

where our faces melted in the moonlight 

yours white, mine featureless 

against moonshadow

i felt your fear as we rolled faceless in the grass
i stt on the ridge in sunlight
is it true we must separate ourselves
from day and night?

the edge of night carries in your fear
on a double headed axe
the axe is cutting the edge of our love
our friendship
sever one, can the other survive?

the dicotomy of edges two people two ways
you are the tao of water
you seek your own course down
from the mountain to the valley below 

i am the vessel placed there to collect you
as you tumble downward
you are also the night and the day that freezes
and thaws the water in the vessel

if the vessel breaks, the sharp edges
stressed by night frost
need the day to bring back the water
to wear the edges smooth again

you are the water
you are the day
i walk down the ridge
my step is uncertain 

i am afraid to leave the ridge
the shadows grow taller across the valley
and the wind is too cool for summer
it brings in the fear riding in on the fog.

1979

added 2/2017

A SENSE OF TASTE

A sense of taste

Today is far eating just made apple pie

this afternoon's blackberries 

with dinner a bottle of noir

Nibble upon skin 

taste it 

knead it 

make it

Tomorrow I'll fast
wake up to more apple pie and cheese
after lunch I'll fast
after dinner I'll fast
Hey, let's eat!

1979
added 2/2017

Forthcoming in Spectrum 34/35 Double Issue, 2023

at yr own wake

at yr own wake

would you come to your own wake

would you knock at your own door-—

would you walk beside me in the land of the living

would you stand before me on the funeral pyre

would you light the match

would you light the match

would you stand before the temple

would you draw the knife across my heart

on the stone altar

would you drink up my blood

would you offer me up?

1979  when?

aded 2/2017

SHORT LOVE POEMS 1978-87 new file

Since I don’t have creation dates for most of these, I made a long file.

Table of Contents:

Short Poems 1979

BAMBOO

I send you white chrysanthemums
frigid as the setting moon
bamboo crickets rub legs
in rhythm to rustling sheets

9/23/1979




 BEHOLD THE RIGHT EYE                                                                                                 

you watch my nakedness
watch my body turning
in the room i am naked
your eyes upon me are naked
your left eye gathers me up
the right eye keeps distance
my breast calls your name
you gather me up on your cock
& your night eye closes

1980



DAWN POEM

to the beauty of the dawn
a lotus opens its wings

winter sun dips into darkness
and we recall our own birth

sprouting seeds
& mud in my hand

12/10/1979





it provided immediate inspiration
and maximized limited resources

it continued to be used
with down-to-earth impact

6/9/79




JAZZ NOTE

was that a
blue bird in a
bay tree
or a jay bird
in a blue tree?

10/12/79
SC Stump 1980

 MELANCHOLY

the center of  a muskmelon
with its lips full of seed
is like the body of a woman
in love

7/28/1979 or 80




MOON CUP

touch the red moon
the cup is full
the pouch holds the cup
like the moon in Gemini

liquid birth
of the moon in a cup
cup full of moon
the body full
the moon blood full
like the heart

eclipse
of dragon's blood
spilled from the cup
the blood of the moon

6/10/1979





UNTITLED HALF LIFE

The ocean is the first
circulatory system
of creatures

Could this scorpio moon
newly shaven
stretch its beams
across the continent?

What is the half life
of a hippie marriage?

11/13/79




 UNTITLED LOVE POEM # 3

emptiness of seashells
mourning for the ocean
trapped within an ear--

my tongue traces snail patterns
in the dark

12/17/1979




UNTITLED LOVE POEM # 4

please stay the night
   again the night
once again the night
             stay

7/7/1979



UNTITLED LOVE POEM # 9

the perfume of flowers
sitar sound
drumbeat
music slips into the ear
bellies slip down
make love

8/13/79