I am ten crows, twenty-three starlings,
one tree, a world of racket, every dusk that ever was.

I am a holy heart four angels defend,
other times I am nothing but flesh and fingertips.

There are four seasons, three necessities,
two sides to the moon.

The window has eight panes;
I am in them all.

On the white screen dance the stringed dots
Mind spilled codes of hieroglyphic thoughts
Slowly they emerge handholding lines
Not always yielding intended designs.
Something was brewing inside the head
Coaxing to weave and take it ahead
The drunken horses so wildly gallop
There is no leash to make them stop.
Nerves are taut and they won't relax
Till all is vented they reach the ******
It was thus fated the moment it was sown
What's to be grown could never be known.
As the fever wanes arrives the new child
It may be adored or it may be defiled
The canvas is washed clean as in the rain
Something is brewing to be vented again.

One of the first times I
went to jail, it was in
Polk County for
public intox.
Drunk in public.
I was homeless for years,
where else was I supposed
to get drunk?

They took me to the
station booked me, and gave
me my phonecall.
I called the bail bonds.
They wanted collateral.
I didn't have anything.
To act tough, I said,
"*******." and hung up.

The cop asked if I felt suicidal.
I didn't but in my drunken
stupor, I said,
"I wish I were dead, you ******* pig."

My next steps were to a small
room with a drain in the middle of
the floor.  They had me strip all my
clothes off and gave me a paper gown.
It was the worst ten hours in jail I
ever spent.
Then, I did wish I was dead.

I was released the next morning.
Kind of sober, and kind of glad to
be alive.
I changed into my clothes.
I found two valiums in my back pocket.
I took them quickly and thought I
need to find a safer place to
get drunk.

the rain won't lift.

it moans a low,
lonesome sound,
gives no mercy.

a window opens.

"i'm a little lost lamb," she tells me.

and I look up and she smiles at me,
she always smiles,. "Maggie," I sigh.

"what are you doing out on a night like this?" she asks.

"i long to dream in black and white
of deserted city streets
to waltz down at night in a cold rain."

it's summer and Maggie's
hanging out the window,
streetlight in her eyes,
her long ***** blonde hair
getting wet from the rain
hangs down around her face.

the dreamer of all the good dreams.
i have to tell her, "Maggie, you're
so beautiful."

"come up. I'll tell your future."

I shrug my shoulders, "I know the future. you die."

"not with me." she laughs softly
like a summer breeze
and her smoky voice whispers,
"your getting soaked, come up
the fire escape."

"so you're the lost lamb," i laugh,
"then what am i? the beckoning scarlet knight,
the golden moth drawn to your fire?"

"there's no music, Jack, but you know
the song too well."

"who chooses who we are,
what we become?

"no pity for us lost lambs."


whether lost or found,
the way a bird knows the sky.
i always know that where ever
I drift
or whoever I might become

I'd can always
find my way back to Maggie's window.

For so many reasons;
When the wow creativity
Of the young, new baby poets,

Bursts all over me,
Making me question
My egotistical perception,
Not a slap, but a belly laugh!
At the old fool, who once thought
Ever so secondary briefly, momentarily,
Unofficially, of his own esteemed self-worth,
Only to be reminded, deaf~dumb & blind~sided
By the fresh air, the aggravating sight of new insight
The delicious!delight  of reading the whole of all night
The explorations, the baby hallucinations, the trembling,
Insights of the explorers of the old, not re!newed, but, but.
Made anew, re~viewed with perspectives boldly unknown,
With crazy wisdom to expound, here, you! right here, right now,
I leave you and return to delight, taste, new extra languages, that
                                               I must
                                         learn not to speak
                                       but to peak, even to
                                     Cry, Laugh even Smile  
    
                              In all my new native tongues



Friday, July 18
5:39 AM,
2025
In the sunroom

Dictated in one fell swoop, not a moment to lose, dispatched while
Still laughing at myself...

fleeing beyond the horizon
a retreating sun sets ablaze
the rigging of aerial galleons
vapor masted and cloudy hulled

running before the wind
with full sail aloft
they press in hot pursuit
their unobtainable quarry

the pale mountainous island of the moon
secure in her fortress
regards the fleet with haughty disdain
as they hurry past

endless blue waters of the sky
deepen towards black
and breakers
on the great reef of the Milky Way
come into view

the fleet softens
losing interest in the hopeless chase
the ships dissolve and stretch out thin
on the last gasp of the failing wind

day sweeps over the edge
of the diurnal shelf
passing from shallows of dusk
to the starlit deeps of night