Fast Food Detective - AVAILABLE NOW! COMING SOON! - Bingo Bob's Offensive Joke Book
Mexico
Chihuahuas in Santa Claus suits
Plastic bottles rolling down the street
Roosters flap their wings
Dogs ripping open trash bags
Brown-eyed, bright-eyed girls in white socks and school uniforms
Purple bougainvillea
A bearded, suntanned guy on the ground
Next to the bus stop
Asleep
Now, it’s time
Once again
The sun is swallowed by the ocean
Young children cry their tiredness
Kept up by their parents
Too late
Into the night
But as always
Finally
Silence spreads
Over the people
Over the city
Over the beach
Over the man asleep in his piss, against the wall
Over the palm trees
Over the jungle
Over the ocean
Until dawn
And
The madness continues
Once again
Dear God
Please be with us as we open our eyes
Thank you for another morning
Created just for us
To know once again
To try to understand once again
What is going on inside us
What is going on around us
And who the heck we really are
* * * * *
Suburban Experience.
1977
If kittens were a penny
I'd buy twenty-five of them
And hide them in the basement
Till everyone had gone to sleep
Then I'd come down and let them out
There they'd go, all over the floor
Little tiny kittens with little, tiny teeth
That go right through your socks
Little pads going up and down the stairs
They'd take care of the curtains in a minute
Then
This horrible house
This tepid experience in luxury living
Would feel like someone cared
* * * * *
You and I Make Cheesecake.
1975.
I like to sit in the kitchen at midnight and make cheesecake
And you like to be there, too
Together we leave by the back door
So quietly
We don't wake your father's fifty-six basset hounds
Outside, the air is crisp like ice milk
So gracefully the steam rises from your skin
There is nothing to hear but the faint whisper of the wind
Gliding over the date-nut palms
And the laughter of the Pygmy garbage men
The trucks have heard us coming
And honk in blasts of three
Making such a racket
They wake the dogs up
Who run in circles, and dance, and pee
“What's happening to this place?” someone says
I turn and look
And it's the Plastic Man
Walking next to me
With his pigeons all running on his head
In the kitchen, the raisins rise up, leap to the floor
And run helter-skelter through the dog's dish
All the time singing of the coming of little baby Jesus
Painted angels lead the way
Singing Christmas carols and throwing rose petals
And weeping for our sins
Because that nasty Orange Julius man
Has led us all astray
There they all go, scampering across the floor
Covered in dog food
While you and I eat pumpkin pie
And the trashcan-kitties laugh
And hug themselves
And snowflakes fall from the sky
“Now it's time,” they say
That you and I go back to our beds
And leave their world
Locked away
Safe inside our heads
"Put it on ice, Fat Man"
A little round one says
"But don't forget to come and see us
When your nine-to-five
Tomorrow
Makes you want some fun instead”
* * * * *
Tree Bounce
There are so many questions not worth asking
I wish I had some now
To throw around
They are fun, like jelly beans
I stand in the forest
The trees are straight and tall and quiet
I get serious
And sit and reflect
And am deep
And the whole universe giggles with glee
* * * * *
The Wild
The amazing thing about the wild is the Silence.
Banda and Reggaeton are for a city
screaming with sirens and car engines.
Here Banda is the sound of the wind
Here Reggaeton in the splashing water
Cumbia is the sound of a bird's wing slicing the air
Mariachi is the sound of a bug
flying by on its way to something very important.
A cricket sings a Salsa so beautiful.
These are the sounds that Silence holds.
These are the symphony we never hear,
as we fly by on our way to something very important.
* * * * *
A Summer's Morning...
1982
I walked alone
Making my way through the dirt and cactus
When I came upon a woman standing before me.
I watched her without emotion
As she reached out a hand and placed it on my heart.
Then incredibly
All the scene was changed
And I stood in the midst of a different world.
Trees were all around me
And in the distance
The sunlight sprinkled diamonds on the water.
Before me stood a most beautiful angel
In whose eyes
I saw everything I had ever longed for.
"This is the truth," she said
"It is only beautiful."
When she spoke this
I had to turn away
So beautiful was she
like the stars and the moon.
We walked along together,
The green above opening out into the sky
And a canopy of light descended around us
To the ground.
I've heard it said that only music
Gave form to the vast silence of space
And now both are more
Because of the other.
Together we walked through this world of beauty
My heart, rushing out through my senses
Filled itself with all that was around us
Until no longer was there an empty space inside of me
There was only beauty,
And I was a part of that.
Then after some time a thought came to my mind.
"Can this truly be real?" it said.
"Is she perhaps not deluding me?
But am I not deluding myself?
Abandoning my senses in exchange for some ephemeral bit of happiness?"
And I began to see now how simple I'd been.
I stopped
And bade my feet take a position that would hold me
And there I sent out my mind to gather the facts.
My older nature was back
And my heart ran from it
And hid.
It must have been a long time
That I stayed so focused
When I felt her hand on my shoulder.
My angel was standing before me and she said,
"Why? Why do you want to leave me?
How could you want to go?"
I felt her tears fall upon me
And I watched her leave
Fading with all the trees
With the sky
And the sparkling sunlight.
Where she had been
Were left shapes of cactus and other desert plants
Brown, flat, dusty plants clutching the dirt
and dust in front of me.
Here, in the bleakest of worlds
I put my face to the ground and wept.
Cleverly I had escaped the arms of heaven.
Cleverly I had escaped the bondage of
Unquestioning love.
And now I laughed and cried
At the foolishness
Of a grown man.
In the midst of these tears
I felt my heart break
and flow out
Into every limb of my body
And its overflow spilled from my eyes
Onto my face
And my river of sadness drenched the ground.
I had been lying there
For what must have been countless centuries
When I felt a hand brush against mine.
"What angel could resist such a heart?"
She said.
* * * * *
Twilight and a Vision of a Crescent Moon
A white steel-blue
Hangs on the evening
All is darkness
Except the light returning from the lake
A silky mist
Covers the moon
Delicate in its last hours
Perhaps there are some stars here and there
Breathed upon by the wind
Suddenly
Into this eternity
A bat scampers across the twilight
Reminding whosoever is watching
That there is also motion
In this silence
* * * * *
Mazama Christmas...
A tiny ember bounces across the floor
The creak of your chair, the clock, the wind
Silently
The warmth of the fire touches my face
Pushing me, tugging me
Away
To sleep
But as my eyes are closing, I turn
To see a last flicker of light
Play softly across your face
* * * * *
You
(1982)
There is something about you that I can't catch
Something about you that draws me to you
With irresistible yearning
But still, it is just a something
I can't hold it or put it in my pocket
Or call it mine
But when I don't try
I just stand there in the middle of it all
Then like that magical sunset when we first met
You flow into my heart
And I am surrounded
With love.
* * * * *
A Choice
(1982)
One man exists in a desert
Parched and barren
Able to survive
Only by sweat and the steel of his determination
On the same street
Another man sways to the sounds of the afternoon
And the music that escapes
The balconies and open windows
As the city cools
In the twilight
Briefly their paths cross
One man smiles
The other nods and looks down
Searching for coins
On the sidewalk
* * * * *
Pike Street
(1982)
In the midst
In the midst
Whistling pipes, shooting streams
Lights racing back and forth
The city certainly must take a breath
A rest, some silence?
Concrete rocks, steel trees
Cars screeching brakes
Clanking manhole covers
Sirens
People shouting through the din
Come quickly!
Come quickly!
Clearance sale! Clearance sale!
Yet
My thoughts keep pulling me back to that time
At the ocean
Boundless
With endless freedom
Those shades of blue that met the horizon
The calming wind that floated across us
And I wonder if there will ever be time
In our lives, for that again
* * * * *
Rain Sparkle
1975 Cobb Mountain, Ca.
Walking along
I stop
The light is on the trees
And their leaves covered with dew
They sparkle in a thousand splinters of light
So many that my heart is filled with love
And I am reminded once again
Of you
* * * * *
To You
Fall 1975
Standing looking out at the forming waves
My mind is drawn away
Out through the windows of my eyes
To the sea
My endless thoughts
Channeled into undulating walls of liquid
Cast far with each crashing down
Till my mind is quiet
In the roaring waves
Then, from the past
They come
Freed
Images and memories
Friends, people, places, gushing like springs
Run over me, over the screen of my mind
And still the door is held open
Each sound – bells, children, crying, laughter
Each grab at my heart and rush on
Like children pulling rings from a carousel
The smell of popcorn, memories, miles away somewhere,
Rainfall, shimmering black pavement, train tracks, crickets
And Christmas mornings one after the other
All so fast
Building, rolling, advancing
Sight and sound,
All of it
Suddenly
Shattering into a million pieces
Into mist and spray
And now whipped by the wind,
Falling down
They disappear and are gone
Faintly
I hear the waves
Somewhere in the distance
Somewhere else
But coming back now
Into things almost familiar
Shapes of waves and sand
And something inside me asks
"Do you remember now?"
"Yes," I reply
“I remember that I exist.”
And stepping back
I turn toward the road
And you nod
And smile