May 2nd

tanka #2

summers spent thorn-scratched

in grass cities, gooseberries

ripe as just-blown glass

red ants boring through the skin

of everything sun-grown, hot

February, Koreatown

A parade of sedans slowed its twilight
march and the birds
of the neighborhood spread the word
along the wire but no one knew
what to do about the hawk that stood
paper bag still in the wilderness

of normandie avenue, its great
sad body gleaming rain-wet
on the cracked cement, the skies
of some lost country calling

out its name which even
if we knew we would not speak
and even if we spoke would never answer

only echo through the doorways
and the hollows of our lives
while all the stoplights turned to stars
and some lost taxi, meter running
poured its heart out on the pavement.

Peggy Sue's

I.

Last night I drove the longlonely
road to Vegas
in my sleep and woke
to quiet in a cheap motel, a pile
of poker chips on my eyes
and the arms of some lost Joshua tree
wrapped
around my neck.

An old coyote tapped
at the windowpane.
Yesterday’s paper was hanging
from his mouth
like a tattooed bone, the marrow
filling with dust

and narrow whispers
of wind.

II.

I could not find the four
sad stars of Los Angeles hiding

in the boundless sky
that gathered the coyote
in its arms, the Sunday times

unfurling from his blackened
mouth and words
rising like smoke

from the page.

III.

Let them scatter
as they may. Let everything
vanish but the desert
and this silent night.

IV.

I want to be your house
when all the old stories
are gone
and the Joshua trees
have been lifted
to the sky in prayer.

I want to stand
wrapped in chains
of Christmas lights you’ve plugged
into the last cold glass of water
this side of Barstow, white as ice
and shining in the night.

I want to be the North Star
to that trucker who sails
the Mojave with loneliness
always at his heels, his next meal
waiting on the stove
of some neon-hearted diner

where every waitress
knows his name
and pours the coffee
just the way he likes it.

got a tanka

i got ten million

dollars in a piggy bank

ready for slaughter

and a bruise big as texas

on my little green eye, yeah

i got a fella

tied and kickin in the trunk

of my car and he

got teeth turning somersaults

up in his head and i got

a pocket fulla

beef jerky got a tanka

gas got a mind to

go to mexico a mind

to go to mexico a

mind to go to mexico a mind