1. IF THERE'S ONE THING I CAN'T STAND 9/13/15
Why do some people-
and I think you know who I mean-
get pit bulls as pets?
Really; they could pick any dog in the store
and they came up with that?
There can’t be any good reason.
And there are other people--
or maybe sometimes the same ones-
driving around in Humvees
getting 10 miles to the gallon.
Or those pickups on stilts
always so loud and intimidating on the road.
Maybe they’re the same neighbors
who say the drought is a hoax, no way
they’re going to let their front lawns die.
It’s like my mother says,
muttering darkly as she reads the front page,
"why can’t everyone else think like me?"
2. CEREBRAL ROULETTE 9/14/15
Now that Dad can’t remember
the names of my three boys—
or even that I have three boys—
I’m starting to get nervous.
It’s like he’d been playing
Russian roulette of the genes
and lost twenty years ago,
when some bullet slowly entered his skull
So what I need to know now
is if that same gun is
what I feel against my own temple.
The cold metal… the ominous click.
3. NOT SO SMART 9/15/15
They call it a smart phone,
but Siri doesn't get much of what I say;
if she were a person, no one would call her smart
unless you needed to know
the square root of 753
or who was vice-president in 1847.
So I'm not worried that we are close
to that robot revolution:
Terminator, Hal from 2001, etc.
Still, I have to admit,
we're relinquishing control
in a lot of disturbing ways:
drones fighting our wars,
cars driving themselves. Maybe even now
at MIT, a phone is cursing back.
4. SELF CENTERED 9/16/15
Every day it's the same thing:
on the roads, drivers rushing to get from A to B,
and so many of them are more important than you!
They sneak up from behind
then cut in front of you at the last second,
and so on: lane to lane, wedging in front
of anyone civil enough to leave
personal space in front of himself.
But who can help but wonder
at the type of person in that car
who thinks so highly of himself
with such clear unfoundedness?
And who can resist the smug glance
when you catch up to them at the light
to see that all their selfish machinations
they’re still only next to you?
5. CLIMATE CHANGE 9/17/15
"The pope should leave climate change to the scientists "-Sen. Rick Santorum.
Excellent advice!
(Though, the pope was trained as a chemist.)
But, following up this line of thinking, what would happen if
we left Science to the Scientists?
Would we have to do whatever they say?
Would Senator Santorum be forced to ban gasoline?
Would Governor Brown have to close down the desert alfalfa fields?
And what about teaching Evolution in Kansas?
Before anyone gets smug
we can push this both ways:
for humans are less efficient then robots
and slavery wins in most economists models.
No soft-hearted exceptions.
No antiques! No mementos!
And don't even ask what science would say
about the value of humanity
whose most enthusiastic accomplishments to date
based on internet activity
are sexting, ultimate fails, and kitten videos.
6. LE BONHEUR D'ÊTRE NÉ GRAND 9/18/15
Chanceux d'être né
deux semaines en retard
t’as pu commencer
la vie en costard
Et comme t’es l'aîné
de tes deux petits frères,
la chance t’épargnait
de leurs jalouses aires.
Ce qui fait que, maintenant
que tes potes sont plus grands
tu sais rester content--
d’un équilibre riant.
7. THE CALIFORNIA SUN 9/19/15
The California sun
shines dry, cold and bright,
you can feel the sea air, deep inland.
Though I grew up here,
I’ve lived elsewhere
long enough to notice the effect
that something kinetic--
some haughty importance--
seems to be alive in the air
though the only thing
in front of you are
landscaped succulents along the roads.
All these overpriced houses,
and new German cars
make aliens of us.
8. A LABRADOR HERE ON OUR STREET 9/20/15
A Labrador here on our street
has an awful conception of "treat"
a dead squirrel or cat--
or even their scat--
is, to her, irresistibly sweet.
9. FIRST POEM IN THE DICTATION APP 9/21/15
While walking with Zoey
in the cool of the morning
and the sun still low in the sky—
As the birds begin singing
in the toyon and willows
and a bumble bee buzzes nearby–
hey drop it drop it drop it drop it give it to me no no yuckie do you want a treat c'mon drop it and i'll give you treat if you drop that nasty thing, come on let's go home to get a treat …
10. HAIKU 9/22/15
Stars fill the black sky--
Nearby, a dog keeps barking.
The master is gone.
11. MAN’S FAREWELL 9/23/15
Farewell, these storied city blocks!
Farewell, you fated fields of corn!
Good luck to you, poor cats and dogs
who I doubt will think to mourn
that we grow weak and cannot stay
to fight these wicked computers
that have eclipsed our brilliant day,
enslaved us with their evil curse.
We cannot talk with child or wife
without damn Facebook in between!
Computers run our very life
lived across a flat touchscreen
That's how I know the end is come--
Too late! A virus has my Apps!
I feel my brain is going numb.
I see the age of man: relapsed.
12. INVENTORY 9/24/15
No human activity
is more satisfying
than taking inventory.
Yet what nursery rhyme line
is more dismissive of royalty than
"the king was in the counting house"...?
Which I mumbled, late into the night,
as I moved numbers from one
column to another; making nothing.
13. BAND OF BOTHERS 9/25/15
What's worse than a roomful of unruly 4th graders?
A roomful of unruly 4th graders holding trumpets.
The din was mind-shattering.
It was embarrassing to watch.
The conductor in such little control
that, by the end of the hour,
we just wanted to dope-slap the parents
of every one of those ill-behaved monsters.
It's enough to make you lose hope in humanity.
Until that moment when they play--
for the third time--
Beethoven's Ode to Joy,
and somehow, they really nail it
Then, tears on our faces,
we forget how they annoyed,
for now they are nothing short of an angelic host;
a harmonious miracle.
14. ON THE ROAD TO RICHES 9/26/15
Apologies to Wallace Stevens
It was when Xi said
China doesn't need to reduce its use of fossil fuels
that the sky seemed bluer,
the economy came out of its hole.
Obama... Obama said
there are no cyberspies.
and no one ever heard of Tibet.
Then the workday seemed longer,
the real wages grown thinner.
It was at that time
that the silence hung longest
the immigrants poorest
and the beloved leaders warmest and fattest.
15. THE MASSAGE 9/27/15
There are always contradictions:
she lives under the poverty line
but charges so much money!
The pain points on my body
she is making more painful
in order for them to feel better.
There is spiritual music
recorded, playing from
a soulless electronic device.
And I, naked under a sheet
her hands on my oiled thighs
listen to her talk about her husband.
16. THE EARTHQUAKE SAVED CHINATOWN 9/28/15
An earthquake knocked out all their lights
just before the angry whites
could shit all over Chinese rights.
With San Francisco burning rubble,
explosions popped their privileged bubble
so they gave the Chinese no more trouble.
The reaper went for taller weeds.
Sometimes that's all your sworn foe needs,
and you’re spared from his evil deeds.
17. TWEETER 9/29/15
Twas Twinings, the twit from Twin Peaks
(that half-wit so twisted in tweets)
who twitted this tripe to his peeps:
"At the twinkling of twilight in Tuolome
twixt twenty twee twiggies who follow me
I will twist, twirl and twerk twice with Salome!"
But that twat, in his twangy tight knickers
twitched too much for tweed twilled in Twickers
and twaddled to death twixt two wickers.
18. THE LESSON 9/30/15
Katie's party
at Build-A-Bear
allowed each guest
unlimited
choice of sequins
ribbons, bows...
Sam grinned widely
and picked a dress
of purple silk
with rainbow stripes
in lamé glitter.
The other moms
began to twitter:
"Why not wait
to see the shirts
we have for boys
before you choose,"
the helper said.
Sam was just six,
but knew they all
were laughing.
And so he watched
the other boys
and picked a soccer
uniform
just like theirs:
plain blue and white.
"I hate this bear"
Sammy said
when we got home.
It went in the
donation bag.
19. THE CUBICLE CHRONICLES 10/1/15
If you are working late one night
in your stark little cubicle--
the plastic desktop, the polyester walls--
as fluorescent lights glare down on you
and the greenish city lights through a nearby window
shine on the detritus of your take-out dinner
while you stare into that flat dull screen
when suddenly, in a terrific crack
and the powerful waft of ozone
a boy and girl were to appear
lightening residues crackling off their skin
and stare at you in sadness,
they may tell you
that they are your grandkids,
come from the future back to rescue you
by telling you not to be
such a cog.
20. MELANCOLIX 10/2/15
Pain sadness isolation, self indulgence,
the curious irony of a flabby unloved clerk
embracing her own misery,
the way we think of certain self-satisfied martyrs.
A bird flies through a long wooden hall
coming in from the frozen winter on one end and steeling itself
to go back into it again at the other.
Crazy bag lady hugging herself
Underneath a tree in fall time,
withering leaves dropping onto her.
As though she asked them to.
21. THE LATE AFTERNOON SUN 10/3/15
The late afternoon sun
shines austere and haughty
in early October.
Each chilly breeze blows
and the treetops rustle
where the fading sun still shines.
22. ANCESTORS 10/4/15
I never knew either grandfather,
both of my grandmothers died early.
Though I didn't know it at the time
moving to California was a kind of rupture
from ancestors, Home, family…
But isn't that the American experience?
Everyone here, from the Ohlone
to the latest boat people
left behind their ancestral homes
to read invent their lives
in California.
Joe came in defeat and sorrow
Arnie in arrogance and braggadocio
Luisa, our housekeeper, came in hope and…
we don't know what else.
And my neighbors, built up of houses
of colonial, French country, hacienda…
We bring that with us.
23. ANXIETY 10/5/15
Why is it always women
who worry the most?
Does it have to do with assigned roles?
Like, the one who has to remember
to stock the fridge, or change the water softener
is going to be the one worrying about
whether it was done, come 3am?
Or is it genetic? Like the one
with the nesting instincts is going to
have the most nesting worries,
the one with the maternal instinct
worries the most about colleges?
If the man has to go work in the fields,
then maybe he'll worry
if it'll rain
unless his wife preempts him,
worrying how they’ll
feed the kids in a drought.
24. CONSPIRACY THEORIST 10/6/15
He was blabbing on
to the other guys
in the hot tub at the Y
"Sun spots from 1952...
and, everyone knows
Al Gore was hoping
to make 1 billion
on carbon credits..."
And so on.
I bit my tongue,
but that tub was getting
too warm for me.
He was just your typical
angry silver haired
conspiracy theorist.
So why let him get to me?
Maybe it's just too hard
to sit and listen quietly
to those who think they're smarter
than all the world's scientists.
25. LAPS 10/7/15
Dive Into that amniotic fluid
start from zero, see if you can make it to 100.
Everyone around you is making the same journey
hand over hand, wiggling, kicking.
Unclothed bodies on their way to the wall.
Next to you are little five-year-olds
and you're losing count what lap you're on
but they're fast, it's a struggle to keep up
in the lanes on either side. Now they're teenagers
whipping through the water like dolphins
Nearly adult bodies with super-adult stamina.
You're on lap 25 now, but
you look at them zipping past and think
how cute they are, how it wasn't so long ago
you would have...
And now you notice the stout middle-aged men
and women in the pool, bad skin with sun damage
as you round lap 53.
Maybe they shouldn't be wearing Speedos
but why are they still faster than you?
They're in pretty good shape!
Even this old fossil in the lane
next to you
who must be eighty,
putting along.
Now, what lap were you on?
89? 90?
When it comes down to it,
the actual number isn't important;
it's more about how long you were in
and did you get
anything out of it?
All that effort?
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