El Solo Pollo

There are so many people

Slews of personalities,

Waiting to be met, to be known

Touched, loved and hated

These hot moments on the street

Fill me up

With tender anxiety,

 Where do I begin?

How can I know them all,

Yet I'm sure I do.

I see their long understandings

And why not?

Aren't we all the same

One-armed man

Leaning close and heavy

At the edge of the mirror?

Every half-ass smile and downcast eyes

Reassures me of my loneliness,

The open beauty of truth

Spoken direct to the soul

Of another, on the limit of acquaintance

At the fluttering lip of this fog-soup city

Would be far out of place

And besides I already know

Her structured past moments

I've smelled her delicate future

It's  no use, the conductor has drifted out

I step inside the late night

Neon taqueria

"Super burrito con pollo"

She's warm in my hands as I walk

Home alone, again

Overwhelmed by every possibility 

Of everything 

She radiates in this brisk night

through her tinfoil suit

As I hold her close

For comfort

With excitement

To devour her lustfully

And intimate

Like a log of golden therapy

  

Jungle to Jungle

It still seemed like a dream even as I was walking down the gang plank for the plane.  What was I doing? Is this for real?  Am i really leaving Kauai?  I was aware that something in a deeper conscious than my conscious self was leading the way.  I let it.  I've learned enough now to sit back and let that energy get you where it wants you.  So often we damper that and subdue its driving force.  The plane jolted back, pressed against my seat, I saw the magical little island slowly fade away from view.  I'm in the river now bub, just thrown right smack dab in the middle, and the current is ripping right something wicked.

I've never been in such a stronger mix of emotions, ever in this life.  Half of my little psyche is yelling at me in a heated panic, "what are you doing leaving Kauai? It's fucking paradise you fool.  Most people would shoot their first born to have a fraction of the life you had."  Perfect waves with crystal clear water in my front yard, a gorgeous house filled with my favorite people, a job that allowed me to make $200 in 5 hours, hammock spots that would bring the most burliest of men to tears, and the most beautiful best-friend/lover that helped heal my heart and restructure my awareness of love.  And the other half of me knew I needed to leave to see what is out there for me in a career sense, and I know that word gets a pretty bad rap, but I'm being pulled to do something with this subtle power coursing through my veins, boiling over potential in the crock pot of my soul. I can't serve tables forever.  And not to sound corny, but I have to follow this destiny driven path to see the full extent of this short beautiful existence on this watery planet.  So with those two strong opposing emotions I've found my self back in California, in a city for that matter, but a beautiful city at that: San Francisco.  For some reason I feel the need to be part of this American Tea Movement, which most people don't even know is happening.  And to be honest, for most of the population, it may be just about as important as the disappearance of a rare stamp or a new artichoke quiche recipe.  But for me that little tea leaf means everything.  It is our key for a slower society and the golden path for human connection, or even self realization for heaven sakes.

So now I'm in the thick process of adjusting to this mainland culture, this fast paced drug fueled madness wild and senseless in every direction.  It slightly hurts when people don't say hi as they walk by me.  The cars honk and blow their frustrated horns the second the light turns green.  The cops are actually cops and walking in the middle of the road I guess is "legally frowned upon".  My niceness is trampled on, smothered in this stress-faced competitive society.  I need shields and sharp swords, full plated armor to even get through the day.  I won't last too long in my sandy bare feet, ukulele on my back and a fresh cracked coconut vibe handing out taro leaves on the streets in exchange for kindness.  But it won't hurt to try.

Ode to Banana

We rustle our feathers, in
Confident confusions
Towards a goal
Into the depths of machines,

Away from nature's
Wet dream Garden
In the yard,
Fruiting for us

We step forward
So full of pride
With just a sharp spoon
For defense against it all

How is it that we
Power past the subtle Banana truths?
Bulldoze bliss in the sake
Of progression

Banana stock grows
With greater determination
Full of greens we can't explain
Browning and dying through another wet year

Before our very eyes
At incredible rates,
But we hold fast to
Our confident confusions

Rather be stripped of freedom
Bottle necked and pouting
A raging fist in the tear gas window
Polished shoes and missing our text messages

Maybe they will give up on us
Just all die at once after nobody notices
Their exploding excitement and cosmic lessons
What's the point of such soft fruit miracles?

I don't blame you tattered leaves
I haven't done the proper protests either
I'm sure i'll wither away in the same soil
Spouting again another life, if I'm so lucky
Enough to exchange these intimacies
With you again.

Out of the Night

Out of the night comes
our timid realization of fear
The unknown and strange calls
They howl continuously to
The tribal blood of our cells

And all at once
At
Some point
They lay down their swords
And unsheath their arrows
In the wind

And we hear nothing
And fear takes its rest
For the time being....
As we may do the same
All at once
At
Some point

During that dream state
Of such anguished temperament
Is a time, we must face
When the red hot edge
Of our intent
Can cut through
the binding night,
To return,

Back into the welcoming kiss

Love Rant

Sometimes I just don't know what to do with love. How to hold it or even how to look at it. I want to caress its beautiful curves and cuddle all night along its wind swept lips, but I can't seem to get close enough. It's always just beyond arms length, always just out of reach. It blows around me and I see its heavenly dance, its delicate touch kissed upon everything it graces, like dogs howling into the night filling the empty darkness. I can't seem to speak its language or read its lips, although I know it so well, I have known it for millions of years, a subtle truth from my primordial depth, but yet I fumble with simple bows of respect and acknowledgement. Like a wise old sage, I'm humbled and speak little. This love we see amongst the youth is feeble and weak as thin ice on spring ponds, it lacks foundation of commitment and genuine honor of Love itself. This modern fast food love is a new fix, a passing fad to get in and get out without folding a hand, to be seen and move on, like tourists photographing away their check lists of beautiful things in paradise. I know such whole hearted love exists, inspiring jaw dropping love, wild man mountain top love that brings two people to enlightenment. A growing, dynamic continuous changing love that leaves each person constantly falling in love with the other. So many times we except a damaging love, a false shadow side of love that's actually painful fear, and yet we except it as "real love" because we know no different. A wolf in white fluffy sheepskin. But this doesn't have to be our reality, it's possible to drop the veil from our face, and a glowing creativity will  emerge between two people. But first we need to release the self destructive grip of hand-me-down conditioning. It has to start with you, with me, with us!  Sometimes we tip toe around this fire, we sing songs to lure her in and cry to connect with all things.  And yet it's beyond our blind attempts, for the graciousness of love has her own sword and cuts whom she pleases. So, here I am on bleeding knees, arms out-stretched ready and waiting for the sharp pierce, swift and quick, to halve my heart and cut me loose from shackled minds.

Tea-Chings

*When steeping the leaves of tea, beware of scalding hot water for it rushes on too fast and zaps the life and flavor with its forcefulness; but also mind the luke warm water for it has merely nothing to say and can't hold it's own weight, unable to dance the degree of the tea.

*Acknowledge the quality of the tea. Give respect and appreciation for its worthiness. For excellence of choice attracts excellence of spirit. The leaves will shine with honest efforts labored for their taste. But also enjoy the mediocre when it's presented, the mundane and dull have their place on the ladder of life.

*Give full attention to the duration of the steeping. Each second reveals an answer. When distracted by annoyance (or beauty) and we lose time of the leaves, they bitter and bloat and ruin the cup. Be assertive and command control of the moment, for it will pass you by like the night train while you sleep if you tarry for just an instant.

*Love the beauty of the tea pot, lavish in the sweet curves of the vessel, the earthy toned clay and the delicate spout. Give thanks for its function, fitting perfectly with fashion. The sexy tradition of ceramics, soft hands creating simple useful forms. But don't get lost on the surface, for her love is in the taste of tea, the steaming aroma holds her soul. The tea pot is merely the silky lingerie wrapped around your lover; enjoy it but don't get too attached when it eventually drops to the ground.

*Careful not to force enjoyment upon your friends, exaggerating all the pleasures and meaning the tea will bring them. Allow the tea to speak for its self. Give space for the tea to talk. Not everyone will like it. Not everyone will like you.

*Observe when the tea spills, and who is spills on. And who gets upset and who laughs. For the tea yearns to explode from the cup, it wants to grace people with its cleansing liquid. An omen of sorts. Be grateful when she jumps out to kiss you.

A Shitty Day on the Water

I was working on a sailboat in Santa Barbara as a young lad, spritely and chipper, eager to be on the water. The salt air gave me such a sweet reminiscent comfort, a soothing reminder of my home town in Maine. But anyway, that's besides the point. This story isn't about picturesque beauty, or my nostalgic longings for freshmen year in college. No, this is a true account of the profound unbelievableness of the human race and the jaw dropping shock of reality.
As I was saying.......I was the first mate for a 41ft sailboat based out of Santa Barbara harbor. There was only a captain and a first mate, the only crew on the boat which took up to 18 people out on 2 hour sailing cruises and whale watches. The owner of the boat was a real douche bag, just a classic rich loser with an insatiable appetite for anger and money. His older brother Gary was even worse but with an added dose of "little man syndrome", and he happened to be the Captain. Once in a while people would rent the boat privately if they didn't want to drink mai tais with total strangers seated on the bow. Nevertheless, this fateful day a wedding couple had rented it. They wanted to give their vows to each other on the wind whipped sea, blue in every direction, and kiss with newly salted lips to the elegant California ocean. I got paid to watch this sort of crap. So, hours before they boarded the boat was decorated in all sorts of wedding shit, wreaths and ribbons, fancy flowers and silks cluttered up the whole ship. It made me sick to see my vessel looking like a doll house on Prozac, but I smiled as they all waddled on, everyone in their best tuxedos and gowns, picture perfect hair and painted faces. The groom handed me two bottles of expensive champagne and barked at me:
"Right after we kiss, bring these up from the cooler and pop 'em open!"
"Yes sir" I sarcastically answered. He thought I was serious.
So, off we went sailing down the coast. I was steering down wind while the delinquent Captain Gary was awkwardly up on the bow stumbling over the vows. About seven brides maids, all plastic and pretentious lined the port side and about seven grooms dudes made horrible penguin lookalikes on the starboard side. So blah blah blah, do you take home girl to...and do you take this guy to blah blah blah? Whatever. They kiss and the groom gives me the wink for the champagne. Which is where the fun begins.
I'm down below when I hear this horrific yell from Capt. Gary: "Walker, Walker, quick, up here quick, bring some towels, quick, on the bow!" He anxiously flailed about. So up I run holding two rolls of paper towels, one in each hand like I'm late to the gladiator's Special Olympics. "On the deck, on the deck, quick, Jesus Christ" he pathetically kept shouting. So as I leap out there I take in all these things happening at once, all these senses coming at me in seconds. Everyone is standing around horribly uneasy, I can instantly feel it. They're looking with frozen shock at the bride's mother on her hands and knees. She is dry heaving and moaning quite loudly. I automatically think she must have gotten sea sick and is puking, I clean up after sick people on the job every day. But then I notice she is covered in a dark wetness, her legs and hands and hair are saturated with it. And milliseconds later I get an ungodly stench that rapes its way into my nostrils. Rancid outhouse with marinated dead things it smells ( and tastes) like. And then I see it, out the corner of my eye, on the port side, there is a stream of murky water spouting up 4 feet from the deck through a tiny hole. I realize its "black water", which is all the piss and shit that has been accumulating in a bag down below for weeks, which the captain had forgotten to pump out before the trip. The bag had gotten so full and backed up it was violently projecting a thick stream out of the tiny hole in the deck plate which is for the methane gas to escape from. The bride's mother had been standing right over it. Week old rotten piss and human shit had shot up into her dress, bent her over and proceeded to "old faithful" all over that poor woman, cascading liquid poop juice through out her $200 hairdo. She was in hysterics. Everyone else was in shock. I pounced onto the menacing jet stream with both rolls of paper towels. I could feel the pressure still pushing up its fecal forced excitement. Black water was running all down the deck while the wind streaked it horizontally across the cabin top. The whole wedding crew all huddled in one corner like they were hiding form lava, fearful they would suffer the same daunting fate as the barbie queen's mother.
The pressure resided and I hosed the deck clean. We instantly turned right around, heading quickly back towards port. Everyone silent. Nobody said anything. Only the light sloshing of waves upon the hull and the agonizing moans of the shit drenched woman were the only sounds to hear. The 20 minute sail back into the harbor felt like centuries. As I tied her up on the dock, the wedding gang all numbly walked off, slow and still riddled with disbelief. The captain looked at me like he just sat on a bag of kittens. I shook my head with such a disgusted shake that I'm sure he cried about it later . And after everyone left and I thoroughly cleaned the boat, I happened to come across the two fancy ass expensive bottles of champagne. That night I laughed wildly with my roommates as we danced around the house eating mircowaved pizza and $100 bottles of bubbly. Marriage is over-rated.

Airplane Hysteria

Airplane Hysteria

Amongst the sleeping drool faced adults
I'm one just like the rest, splayed out
Across all three seats
I wanna bop all their balding heads
Like that silly gofer game,
Then hide under this weak wooly blanket

Everyone behaves on planes
Like punished children,
"Sit there and don't move"
"Here's some water, stay put"
"Read this and shut up"

I feel uncomfortable being so close
To such un-talkative strangers
I'd be tarred and feathered
For poking my eager head between the seats
Looking for a friend to play with,
So I don't, I sit quiet,
Like the sheep that I am

I want to scream aloud, so proudly
"Is anyone awake? Is this your normal
Pathetic selves"?
But I don't, I pretend to sleep

I watch the booze roll by
Pushed by ex-porn stars
Trying to make ends meet
Caked with make-up and burnt blonde hair
If I was younger I would steal a bottle
Out the back
to pound real quick,
And pinch her ass when I'm done,
But I don't,
I politely
Ask for tea and say thanks

I think about masturbating
In the bathroom for my one act
Of rebellion.
But who would I tell
And who would believe me?

The shade lifts quick,
The light is unbearable
"I'm blind" I scream at the top of my lungs.
No, I don't.
But that would have been funny.
The ocean is so huge, and blue
It scares me to
Fathom her magnitude,
So, the flimsy shade comes down

I never buckled when
They told me
And I carried on three bags,
The ticket lady never noticed
I am a rebel!
Cross word puzzles suck
And i feel bad for people who do 'em

Sudoku is for pussies
The news is full of lies,
And your kids are the product
Of a thousands year
Septic leak,
Where the fuck are we?
I hate humanity,
But I love these people

They'll be my best friends
When the plane goes down,
We've all become so close
Watching such shitty movies
And drinking the worst tea
in the world


1/31/13

Communication

Coffee shop.  Santa Barbara.  Two young adults step out of an fancy Mercedes.  One guy and one girl, both wearing light blue hospital scrubs.  They walk up to the counter, each order a vanilla caramel latte and sit down.  Paper to-go cups in one hand and in the other their cell phones, whipped out moments before they even settle in.  Sipping their drinks facing each other, never looking up, their thumbs twitching away like rapid gun fire.  They break for a quick moment and each pulls out a prescription bottle, wash down some pills with their vanilla caramel lattes and resume to their repetitious texting.  They finish their drinks before too long, never saying a word to each other, stand up, and walk to the car still on the phones.  The black slick paint is bright in the mid day sun as they drive away.  Birds land at their vacant table looking for crumbs, there are none.

Nostalgia

How does this paranormal emotion even find its way into the human psyche, out of the depths of our longing memory?  It's hard to even pronounce, sort of gives ya a mouth full, doesn't it?  A sexy word with lingering erotic under tones: Nostalgia. But what does it actually mean besides: a wistful or excessively sentimental yearning for return to or of some past period or irrevocable condition? Is it a disapproval of the present, and the knowledge that your previous younger, more wild life brought about a sense of excited wonder and egoic satisfaction? Is it Saturn returning with its identity daggers testing the individual with how content they are with their new found body, slowly fading, and their strange confusion for the future? Nostalgia permeates and marinates within us for some reason, it shakes our core on such a mild violent level.

I stroll through the streets of Santa Barbara seeing the past with eyes of my 18 year old self.   I glare upon the sidewalks I used to skate, the restaurants I went on awkward dates, the corner where I got a jay walking ticket, waves I surfed while chocking on a water, and the hills above the city I used to sit and watch the night take over the sun, alone and happy.  Further along I come into the heavy mess of healthy yuppies.  I've found my old bench near the Tuesday farmers market. It's colder than I remember it, but maybe I'm spoiled from living in Hawaii. I feel some what detached, like I'm a stranger in my own home. Almost ghost-like. People from years past wander by, faces older, hair gray with crying babies. I recognize them, but they have no clue who I am. They don't remember me observing them 10 years ago, seeing through their transparent lives. To them I'm just a hipster kid on the street eating carrots, drinking tea, writing my life away. It's so easy to see time pass when face to face with once youthful people now full fledged adults, wearing suits and sad eyes. Nothing can show you the time that has passed more truthfully than the social observations of people you once knew in your past. I've come to understand Nostalgia as the sweet pain that emerges from your heart when you realize that you too have undoubtedly aged just as much, and that maybe you have nothing to show for it. But what can anyone show for it that doesn't eventually turn into tumble weeds? What has anyone really accomplished that can be worthy of admiration? Honestly, what has anyone got that holds any value besides a softness in the eyes, a gentle heart and a listening smile?