On the beauty, horror, and sorrow of a drunken hit-and-run

poetry

The spray of dust was majestic
as the pickup exploded the bricks,
and yet it did not stop
but proceeded to further rut the yard
and straddle another mail box
which was broken into a million teeny, tiny pieces
by the powers of modern machinery
and alcohol.
And yet the truck was not dissuaded
from its onward course, but
denying the logical conclusion of the air-bag,
the truck drove on, with sparks flying as
the undercarriage scratched its path into the ground.

And as I watched,
I could not stop thinking
about the old man
I glimpsed in the driver’s seat
and the semi-circle and
squiggly line on the liscence plate;
about what causes an old man to become
so pissed at 6:00 in the afternoon
and then to drive home,
against all the insistence of MADD.

Was it bad news? bad health? bad gas?
Was it caused by a call? a friend? a thought?
Or was he just lonely: alone: forgotten:
drowning his sorrows: forgetting why he was drinking?
Or maybe he was just an old bastard,
trying to kill someone on his way home.
Whatever the reason, whatever the cause,
tonight the old, handicapped, mail box destroyer
is sitting in prison,
wishing today had gone down differently,
and I too wish it had happened differently
because these feelings of pity are not comfortable.

Dreamer

poetry

I’m a dreamer even when dreams crush and
lash out a vitriol: ” I’ve got no fuel to go on”
The void in my mind turns into a lush dream
where to be empty is to be filled with space.
Infinite and blue.

illusions of delusions of moola, of grandeur

poetry

in my head
i make a lot more money
and get paid to write

upstairs is where
all kinds of editors cant keep
their hands off me, cant get me
enough money quickly enough

in my head
i’m famous but modest
wise and generous
with my exorbanent amounts of coin

ideas flow
over flow
and page after page
has people begging for

moremoremore!
in my head
i start out modest
and forget how i got there
in my head
i forget where i am

in my head

you know you like it you know you want
moremoremore.

inmyheadpeoplelovemebecause
iwritealotbetterthanthis

Sometimes 2

poetry

sometimes

late at night,

i can’t stop thinking, wondering, pondering

about

what the future holds, where I fit

and whether I like that place much.

and all the thinking

gets me nowhere, except

to more tired in the morning.

Lala Ladida

poetry

My brain is getting out of hand,
a little gem of insight sprouts into erratic thoughts,
and I scatter and stumble into this big nothingness,
this empty space between my body and the ceiling.
The blankness around gains on me, and I’m feeling
blurry each passing day. So I bought

an amaryllis to rebuild my pathway to humanity
but it withered the next day,

a bird to cage down my fears
but it pushed daisies the following day,

a cat to obtain celestial graces
but it purred and asked me to go away

adulthood aka the fall from grace

poetry

once I was a star-eyed child
standing still
between a muddy earth and a glistening sky and
dream of fire and God.
I had not learned how to tip toe
I was lighter then,
and silence was still.

Give me a holiday without
holes beneath my feet,
clowns dancing above my head.
oh a holiday,
a holiday’s
scent of lilac and jasmine,
soft and intoxicating.

reflections on the imminent fatherhood of fellow amateur poet roger mugs

poetry

i cannot believe–

the same guy who shaved
a single mutton chop just
to see to if anyone would
notice (and then forgot)

the same guy who vowed
to wear black pants and a
white shirt for an entire
year (but failed because of a girl)

the very same guy who ran
nude with us across
Norlin quad and into the
shockingly cold night (after some hesitation)

the exact same guy who breathed
in the Pacific after we drove
to the edge of the continent to
sleep under Redwood trees (eventually)

–will soon be a father.

i cannot believe the guy who

shaved
vowed
ran
breathed

will soon be a father.

but i am confident he will
be brilliant (and quite the
embarrassment during her
teenage years).

the father to be